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Maybe it’s not time to panic about the 2023-24 Kentucky basketball roster but it is time to worry.
During Sunday Morning Sports Talk on WLAP (630 AM), Kentucky Sports Radio basketball writer — one of our show’s co-hosts — admitted he was starting to be more than just a little bit concerned. He’s not the only one, either.
Between players in the NBA draft and those who have transferred/graduated, Kentucky is currently left with just seven scholarship players. Five are freshmen — Rob Dillingham, Justin Edwards, Reed Sheppard, Aaron Bradshaw and DJ Wagner. The only two current returning players are Adou Thierry and Ugonna Onyenso, who briefly put his name in the transfer portal before deciding to stay at UK. Thiero and Onyenso combined to average 4.8 points and 4.5 rebounds per game last season in limited action.
Kentucky could still get Antonio Reeves to take his name out of the NBA draft and return to UK. Pilgrim told us Sunday that Reeves has not graduated so he cannot transfer as a graduate student and he did not put his name into the transfer portal. However, Pilgrim told us Sunday his sources said not to count on Reeves definitely being back.
But UK’s freshman players will have three of the top 10, four of the top 15 and five of the top 40 prospects in the 2023 class. That’s not bad at all.
The problem is depth. As good as the freshmen could be, the roster has to have more players for practice and game depth. It’s also no guarantee every freshman player will be an immediate star. Of the top 100 scorers in college basketball last year, only one — Alabama’s Brandon Miller — was a freshman.
So maybe it is not quite time for UK fans to panic but it will be soon if there are not some roster additions in the next two weeks.
7 Responses
Depth and experience.
Well.. the frosh won’t complain about playing time
Doesn’t matter the roster with the current fraud of a coach. Hopefully next season he gets sent packing.
As A fan maybe you should think about packing it up and take your negativity with you.
So we won’t make the Big dance, maybe not the NIT either. What is the third level? The CBB? We could be competitive in that.
I’ve always supported Calipari, but always thought he needed to mix more experienced players,who would be here 3;4 years to go with them, now not having that is showing,and hurting.
Throw in the new wild transfer portal,players going here,there,no PT, I’ll leave, play freshman and don’t care about me, I’ll leave, no guaranteed NIL money,nope see ya ! It’s changing drastically,college sports will never be the same again ! Seeing guys who you grow to love and support for years, it’s just not going to happen very often, and now Coach Cal and UK has to catch up ! It’s not just Calipari,Barnhardt does as well !
Good points Dan. It is not easy to change but sometimes we have to.
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