![]() ![]() Of the top 100 scorers in college basketball last season, only Alabama's Brandon Miller, who was SEC Player of the Year and is projected as a top-3 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, was a freshman. The transfer portal and NIL has made college basketball older than it's been in quite some time. But the college basketball landscape has undergone seismic shifts over the last decade, when Calipari was at his peak during the first half of his tenure in Lexington. Kentucky returns only Adou Thiero and Ugonna Onyenso, who combined to average just 4.8 points and 4.5 rebounds per game as freshmen last season to go with a top-ranked recruiting class that features three of the top 10, four of the top 15 and five of the top 40 prospects in the 2023 class, which according to the 247Sports Composite, is Calipari's second-highest rated recruiting class of the 14 he's had at UK.Īfter several years of relying heavily on the transfer portal, Calipari will attempt to revert to the formula he's had his most success with in a freshman-dominated and guard-oriented team. Calipari will likely never fill all 13 of his scholarships but seven is not nearly enough, especially when you consider how injuries have ravaged the team in recent years. And with both Tshiebwe and Livingston both trending toward staying in the draft, is it time for Calipari to hit the panic button?Īlthough the window for the transfer portal has already closed, another wave of grad transfers are expected to hit the portal ahead of the May 31 draft deadline and could provide the Wildcats with some intriguing options.īut as it stands right now, Calipari has just seven scholarship players to work with less than two months from when UK is scheduled to represent the United States at the FIBA GLOBL JAM in July. To this point, Kentucky has only pursued two transfers in the portal: Michigan All-American center Hunter Dickinson, who chose Kansas and San Diego State forward Keshad Johnson, who appeared to be a tailor-made replacement for Livingston, picked Arizona on Saturday.Īfter another disappointing end to the year, this has not been the offseason most fans envisioned. ![]() "We'll see where all this other stuff goes." ![]() "The portal is down the road for us," Calipari said. Since then, Calipari has seen Sahvir Wheeler (Washington), CJ Fredrick (Cincinnati), Daimion Collins (TBA) and Lance Ware (Villanova) depart through the transfer portal and watched as Jacob Toppin, Cason Wallace, Antonio Reeves, Oscar Tshiebwe and Chris Livingston declared for the 2023 NBA Draft.Ĭalipari also made it clear that he would be patient in pursuing players from the transfer portal while awaiting final decisions from Reeves, Tshiebwe, and Livingston. This team, in my mind, should have both." "The best teams I've had here were a combination of young kids and veterans. "I believe we'll have the guys coming back that need to come back and we'll go from there," Calipari said. Following the end of Kentucky's season in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, head coach John Calipari sounded optimistic the Wildcats would have some players return to complement UK's incoming recruiting class, which ranks No. ![]()
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