What should John Calipari do now to get Kentucky fans back on board?
Unlike many, I have no fault with the roster strategy John Calipari deployed around the NBA Draft withdrawal deadline.
To soothe a restive Kentucky men’s basketball fan base, Calipari badly needs to produce a monster season in 2023-24.
The best chance of making that happen was for at least two out of the veteran UK trio of Oscar Tshiebwe, Antonio Reeves and Chris Livingston to take their names out of 2023 NBA Draft consideration and come back to Lexington to play next season.
Given that reality, it was eminently logical for Calipari to wait as long as possible to give those three a chance to return.
Alas, with Wednesday’s withdrawal date having come and gone, Tshiebwe and Livingston still have their names in the draft. Reeves is returning to NCAA basketball, but is non-committal about coming back to Kentucky.
That means the reward for Calipari’s patience is that an already-agitated UK fan base is now in a near meltdown over Kentucky’s roster management. It also means that what Calipari does next in filling out the Cats’ roster will, to a large degree, determine the arc of the coming Wildcats season.
“We support all of our players as they weigh their options and pursue their dreams and it’s my job to make sure these kids are making informed decisions,” Calipari wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning. “(Those decisions) may not be what you think or I think — but (they are) informed. But that also makes it hard to move until you really know what your roster is going to be. We’ve prepared for all scenarios and now we can move forward.”
As things stood as of June 1, UK had only seven recruited, scholarship players pledged to play for the Cats in the coming season. Adou Thiero and Ugonna Onyenso are two lightly used but talented sophomores. That duo will be joined by five lavishly hyped incoming freshmen — Aaron Bradshaw (No. 2 in the class of 2023 Rivals 150), Justin Edwards (No. 3), DJ Wagner (No. 6), Robert Dillingham (No. 15) and Reed Sheppard (No. 28).
Unless Reeves ultimately decides to stay a Wildcat, Kentucky will have lost nine scholarship players off its 2022-23 roster — every one of whom had at least one season of college eligibility remaining.
UK has four players turning pro in Cason Wallace, Jacob Toppin, Tshiebwe and Livingston. Kentucky also has four players exiting via transfer in Sahvir Wheeler (Washington), CJ Fredrick (Cincinnati), Lance Ware (Villanova) and Daimion Collins (LSU). Reeves could push the Big Blue transfer exodus to five players.
Of the UK players in the NBA Draft, only Wallace seems certain to hear his name called by Adam Silver. That means it is possible Kentucky will lose up to eight players who could have returned to play for the Cats in 2023-24 but instead left without being selected in the NBA Draft.
For Kentucky, it is not losing one-and-done players who go in the first round of NBA Drafts that hurts. What continues to damage UK is that the culture that has been built around the Kentucky program seems to make it impossible for the Cats to naturally develop the kind of veteran cores that have cut down the nets in every NCAA Tournament since 2016.
Not including the possible transfer of Reeves, UK has lost a combined seven players to transfer in the past two seasons alone. That so many incumbent players do not see a future in staying and developing at Kentucky is a problem.
UK and Calipari are in keen need of a rebound season after coming off a rugged three year stretch — 9-16 in 2020-21; first-round NCAA tourney loss to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s in 2021-22; another double-digit-loss season (22-12) with a second-round NCAA exit in 2022-23.
After what has so far been a desultory offseason, the first step toward a bounce-back year for the UK coach is successfully evaluating and wooing some serviceable college hoops veterans out of the transfer portal.
“We have a talented group right now which isn’t finished yet,” Calipari wrote on Twitter, “but when it’s done we will have a talented team who will chase the ultimate goal together and make BBN proud.”
At the least, Kentucky needs a physical presence to bolster its front court and a perimeter player whose threat as an outside shooter can spread the floor. (If Reeves does not return, Calipari and the Cats could actually use two capable perimeter shooters).
A physically mature big man willing to play a role and a veteran guard whose threat as an outside shooter stretches defenses sounds a lot like the qualities Lance Ware and CJ Fredrick, respectively, would have brought to the 2023-24 UK roster — had they chosen to remain on it.
Player retention is nowhere near as sexy as luring ballyhooed high school recruits nor wooing star transfers away from other schools. Nevertheless, Kentucky men’s basketball would be so much better off moving forward it it could generate some more staying power.
