DJ Wagner is one of the talented freshmen Kentucky will be counting on this year. (UK Athletics Photo)
Arkansas coach Eric Musselman has been a master of the transfer portal for years and the trend in college basketball recently has been for veteran teams to be the most successful in postseason play.
Kentucky coach John Calipari tried building an older roster without great success and this year is back to having eight freshmen and at least three could become starters with five or six playing key roles this season.
Can that be a winning formula for Kentucky?
At the SEC Media Days Wednesday in Birmingham, Musselman said he thought it could work for Kentucky and gave Calipari a huge compliment.
“I think it depends on who those freshmen are. Again, I can just use our team last year. I mean, we started three freshmen. One of ’em was hurt for a good portion of the season. If he’s not injured, we probably have more wins than we did last year,” Musselman said.
“If (Trevon) Brazile is playing with those three freshmen, maybe we have five to six more wins, to be honest with you, when you consider Nick Smith’s talent.
‘I think you can win (with freshmen). If we wouldn’t have played UConn and we would play some of the other teams left in the tournament, we felt like coming off that Kansas win, even with the three freshmen starting, that we could have gone beyond a Sweet 16.”
Now comes a quote made for Calipari and the UK staff to share with recruits.
“Coach Calipari, there’s no one better at coaching younger players. There’s no one better in the country, probably no one better in the history of college basketball, coaching young guys. I don’t think there’s even a close second,” Musselman said.
“So, yes, I do think they can have great success even though they are young ’cause he’s got lottery picks. When you have lottery picks, first-round picks, you’re going to win games.”
