LEXINGTON, Ky. — The writing has been on the wall for months, but now that Shaedon Sharpe is officially staying in the NBA draft, the Kentucky Wildcats can move on and look ahead to the 2022-23 season knowing for certain that they won’t have the star recruit.
Where does that leave UK’s roster, and what are the realistic expectations for John Calipari’s program in the upcoming campaign?
Even without Sharpe — the nation’s No. 1 recruit when he enrolled in classes at Kentucky earlier this year — the Cats are expected to be among the top teams in the country for the 2022-23 season. Perhaps even No. 1.
Sharpe’s departure leaves Kentucky with a likely group of 10 scholarship players, three short of the maximum allotted by the NCAA but a group heavy on talent and positional versatility.
In the backcourt, starting point guard Sahvir Wheeler returns for a second season at UK, while incoming combo guard Cason Wallace — one of the top recruits in the 2022 class — should start immediately and could see quite a bit of time on the ball as a freshman.
They’ll be joined by shooting guards CJ Fredrick and Antonio Reeves, two players who will make their Kentucky debuts this season after proving to be capable scorers at other programs (Iowa and Illinois State, respectively). Another incoming high school recruit, combo guard Adou Thiero, will come in with tempered expectations of an immediate impact but should be a valuable player in UK’s practices with a high upside for the future.
McDonald’s All-American wing Chris Livingston and forward Jacob Toppin, who announced his return to UK on Tuesday, also project to play major minutes, likely splitting their time between the perimeter and the frontcourt depending on lineup configurations and opposing matchup scenarios.
National player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe will be UK’s dominant force in the paint, with McDonald’s All-American sophomore Daimion Collins looking to make a major jump in year two, and junior big man Lance Ware returning to bolster Kentucky’s post play.
In all, the Cats will have two returning starters, a total of five scholarship players who saw time on the court last season, another (Fredrick) who has been with the program for a year, and four newcomers.
“You’re more optimistic when you have the returning players you have coming back — to really mesh together and really contend for something next year,” said 247Sports analyst Travis Branham. “They definitely have the talent. They have the national player of the year returning. So you can’t ever rule a team out like that — that has this blend of experience and also two very valuable young guys coming in.”
Replacing Sharpe’s expected offensive output will be a tough task, however.
Branham is particularly high on Wallace, a 6-4 prospect from Texas who is known as a lockdown perimeter defender but can also change a game with his versatility on the offensive end. Branham acknowledged that it’s always difficult to project how college freshmen will adjust to the next level — even the most highly touted prospects — but Wallace is well-regarded in the recruiting community as a player who should make an immediate impact with minimal growing pains.
“Cason Wallace, I fully believe in,” Branham said. “I think he’s going to become the focal point for Kentucky in a lot of ways. Both offensively and defensively. He’s going to be asked to get them a lot of buckets. But I do think filling that void of losing Shaedon — especially putting points on the board — that’s going to have to be a collective effort.
“There’s not one guy on this team (who can fill that role) — and that’s not knocking anybody — but Shaedon is just a very gifted scorer. And replacing a talent like that is no easy task. So, a lot of this is going to come down to: How does this team mesh together?”
Will Kentucky add to its roster?
As it stands, the national experts have the Wildcats among the top contenders for the 2023 crown.
ESPN has Kentucky at No. 3 in its early rankings for next season. CBS Sports puts UK at No. 4 nationally. The latest update from 247Sports ranks the Cats at No. 2 in the country. Calipari’s squad fetches similar projections from other national outlets, and all of these rankings have been made under the assumption that Sharpe would indeed be gone this summer.
So, it stands to reason that the Cats don’t really need to add anyone else this offseason.
It sounds highly unlikely that Calipari will try to bring in another scholarship player to the 2022-23 roster at this late stage in the process just for the sake of bolstering the team’s numbers. The UK coach clearly likes this group as assembled, and he’s not desperate to add to the current mix.
Anyone who joins the Kentucky roster from this point on would need to have the potential to make this team markedly better. Such options could emerge in the form of a late reclassification candidate from the recruiting ranks or in the wake of Wednesday’s deadline for college players to withdraw from the NBA Draft and retain their eligibility, especially with some in that position having already put their names in the NCAA’s transfer portal.
One such name that has come up in recent weeks is Patrick Baldwin Jr., a former No. 1-ranked recruit in the 2021 class who has struggled with injuries over the past couple of years but still projects as a possible NBA Draft pick.
Baldwin, who earned an early scholarship offer from Kentucky as a high school recruit, is a 6-foot-9 wing. He played his freshman year at Milwaukee, where his father, Pat Baldwin, was the head coach, after ending up as the No. 8 overall recruit in the 2021 class.
Due to injuries, Baldwin played just 11 games this past season, averaging 12.1 points and 5.8 rebounds in 28.5 minutes per game. His father was fired as head coach at the end of the season.
Baldwin also suffered a season-ending ankle injury during the second game of his senior year of high school, so he’s played sparingly over the past couple of seasons. Billed as a terrific outside shooter with size, Baldwin was just 26.6 percent from three-point range as a college freshman.
Still, the potential is there. ESPN’s updated mock draft Tuesday morning had Baldwin as the No. 34 overall pick this year, and a year of success in college could vault him back into the lottery discussion for 2023.
“If he exits the draft and comes knocking on Kentucky’s door, I think he could be one that they would take,” Branham told the Herald-Leader last week. “But they’re not just going to go and seek out somebody just for the sake of having another body on the roster.”
Baldwin did tell HoopsHype a few days ago that he planned to stay in the draft, though no official announcement had been made as of Tuesday night.
Kentucky’s coaches will remain on the lookout for players who might be able to truly help the Cats next season, but the options are expected to be slim moving forward. Branham said this offseason’s transfer portal class, as a whole, was down from last year. On top of that, Kentucky is now in a position — with so many talented players already on the 2022-23 roster — that makes it tough to attract other potential major contributors who could get a bigger opportunity elsewhere.
“So finding a quality player, just in general, hasn’t been easy for anybody,” Branham said. “And then finding one that would be willing to come into their current situation makes it even more challenging.”
