These past couple of years have not been a walk in the park for anyone, but if you were to ask Kentucky basketball fans what the hardest part of their last year was they would be likely to mention the horrendous year that came from Kentucky’s Men Basketball Team. Anyone familiar with college basketball knows that the Wildcats have always been a powerhouse when it comes to competing in the sport. Therefore, when they went 9-16 in the 2020-21 season and barely broke even, it is no wonder why the fans would be distraught.
Ever since the early years of college basketball, there has been an expectation that UK’s team has been held to by its fans and the basketball world as a whole. Over the last decade, there has never been a season where the team has lost more games than they have won. At least this was the case up until this past season.
Critiques have been made by spectators when it comes to the “one and done” idea that has developed in the college basketball realm over the last decade or so. Many people, both fans and sports analysts have argued that players should be required to stay a certain amount of years before they are able to declare for the draft; like the rule that college football players have to follow where they must stay for three years before they are able to leave. These critiques have been aimed at Kentucky because they typically score the big recruits who do end up leaving after one season.
Although these players are highly ranked coming out of high school, it is clear that the game changes in many ways from high school to college. Most players are able to adapt their game to this new speed, however, there are some who just cannot get a handle on the new ways that are required to have success in college. This was the problem with many of the players that were on the losing 2020-21 UK team. It was clear that the Cats needed to change the way they recruited and thus came their biggest helper, the transfer portal.
Kentucky’s Coach, John Calipari, had gotten used to getting lucky with the top recruits coming in that were able to adjust the way they played and were able to have success when it came to competing against other top teams, but he was quickly humbled after this past season. Coming into the 2021-22 season, Coach Cal made it clear that he was changing his techniques when he began to go for transfer players.
The first transfer player that he landed was a 6-9 Forward from West Virginia, Oscar Tshiebwe. Tshiebwe came out of high school as a five-star recruit, and picked the Mountaineers over the Cats. However, Cal was able to pick up his former prospect after he entered the portal this past year. Another vital piece came from Davidson, 6-5 shooting guard, Kellen Grady. Grady is a grad transfer who scored 2,000 points while he was at Davidson.
Along with these two pickups, the Cats gained a few more transfers for this 2021-22 season, and a five-star freshman in Ty Ty Washington, who has already been named the SEC Freshman of the Week multiple times this season.
Fans of the Wildcats had lost hope after last year’s season, but so far this season it seems as though their hopes have been restored by this new team full of veterans. Kentucky is 17-4 right now, and has only lost two games in the SEC, and has already won more games than they lost during the 2020-21 nightmare. Could the transfer portal continue to be the Cat’s(and the fans)biggest helper going into the future?
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