Kentucky needs some help for next season. What should UK target in the transfer portal?

John Calipari has college basketball’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class coming in and the possibility of some talented Kentucky players coming back.

That’s almost certainly not going to be enough to make UK a national contender for the 2023-24 season. And it probably won’t even be enough for Calipari to fill out a Wildcats’ practice.

Four players from this past season’s Kentucky roster — Jacob Toppin, Cason Wallace, Sahvir Wheeler and Ugonna Onyenso — have already shut the door on a possible return to Lexington. UK’s two leading scorers, Oscar Tshiebwe and Antonio Reeves, are testing the NBA Draft waters. Chris Livingston is expected to do the same. CJ Fredrick is still deliberating his basketball future, and Daimion Collins could hit the transfer portal soon.

Junior forward Lance Ware and freshman guard Adou Thiero are expected to return to UK — as of now — but nothing is certain yet, and that’s the full rundown of the Wildcats’ 2022-23 roster.

Calipari has five freshman recruits for next season. He’ll need quite a bit more to ensure the Cats are true contenders in 2023-24.

With the top players in the 2023 recruiting class pretty much spoken for — and Kentucky in need of a more veteran presence anyway — any instant-impact additions to UK’s roster for next season will be coming from the transfer portal.

This is what the Wildcats should be looking for there.

Defense, defense, defense

There is no more glaring need for Kentucky next season than capable players on the defensive end. Even in the best-case scenario that some considerable combination of Reeves, Livingston, Fredrick and maybe even Tshiebwe comes back, there’s not enough defense there to boost up a freshman class that will come to Lexington with a ton of question marks on that side of the court.

And UK’s defense undoubtedly needs to improve for these Cats to go anywhere.

In the 21 NCAA Tournaments in which the KenPom ratings have been around, all 21 national champions have finished in the top 25 in defensive efficiency. This season’s finalists — champion UConn (seventh) and runner-up San Diego State (fourth) — were both top-10 nationally. Kentucky was 68th in that stat for the 2022-23 season and hasn’t ranked better than 35th in any of the past four years.

The Wildcats ranked worse than 40th just once in Calipari’s first decade on the job (and they were top 25 in seven of those first 10 seasons).

A major part of UK’s recent struggles have stemmed from a defensive drop-off, and it needs to be corrected.

Rim-protection should be a big priority for next season. Calipari acknowledged going into the 2022-23 campaign that his best Kentucky teams have been defensively dominant at the rim, but the past two seasons — with Tshiebwe at the “5” spot — have been, by far, UK’s worst in terms of blocks per game. The 2022-23 team was also UK’s worst, by far, in opponent field-goal percentage, landing at 126th nationally — the first time a Calipari team has ended up outside the top 100.

Five-star recruit Aaron Bradshaw could emerge as a top-notch shot-blocker, but much of his potential has so far been unrealized, and it’s not quite clear what type of player he’ll be as a college freshman. None of UK’s other recruits or returning players projects as a “lockdown defender” next season, so the Cats could use help pretty much anywhere on the floor.

With veterans making a much larger impact in college basketball in recent seasons, UK’s opposition will be older and craftier. And while top scorers might get the most buzz in the portal this offseason, landing an elite defender (or two) should be the Wildcats’ primary focus.

Another big man

Bradshaw is coming in, but Onyenso is gone, Tshiebwe is probably gone, and Collins sounds likely to hit the portal. The Cats need another post player, and he needs to be a good one.

Luckily for Calipari and his coaching staff, that appears to be the position with the most instant-impact guys already in the portal, and more are likely to join in the coming weeks.

The clear consensus No. 1 player in the overall transfer rankings is Michigan star Hunter Dickinson, a 7-1 center and one of the most accomplished college basketball returnees for the 2023-24 season.

Kentucky’s coaches have already been in contact with Dickinson, and there’s a mutual interest between the Cats and a player who could show up on some preseason All-America lists, wherever he ultimately lands.

Dickinson has good shot-blocking numbers — 1.8 per game this past season — but his defense, especially away from the basket, isn’t all that notable. He is, however, a highly versatile offensive player and would be a no-brainer addition for Kentucky, if things progress that far.

The portal is already stacked with other intriguing bigs. Five of the top seven transfers in college basketball statistician Evan Miyakawa’s rankings are designated as centers, so there should be a good fit for Kentucky somewhere.

Timing could be an issue. Tshiebwe will have until May 31 to remove his name from consideration and return to school. UK will need to move on a high-impact big man before that date, so things could get tricky.

Point guard help

Yes, UK has DJ Wagner coming in, and the freshman guard is already one of the most-hyped recruits in the Calipari era. There are still some questions about his game, especially at the point guard spot. Wagner is an electric scorer and penetrator with a ton of upside, but his decision-making has been questioned the deeper he gets into defenses, and the jump from playing against teenagers to competing against college veterans will be a big one.

He’s expected to be good, but this Kentucky team likely needs him to be great next season. And, even if he is, he can’t do it for 40 minutes. Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard are also highly touted combo guards in UK’s class, but both would face a steep learning curve playing the point right off the bat. Reeves, Fredrick and Thiero — if any or all return — took turns filling in there this past season, but none of those situations would be ideal.

It seems clear UK could use another true point guard on the roster, especially after the injury troubles at that position over the past two seasons (and the mediocre play there the season before that). Calipari’s problem: How do you convince a veteran point guard capable of playing at a place like Kentucky to actually come here knowing (or assuming) that Wagner is slated to get nearly all of the minutes at that spot?

It’s a dilemma, for sure. And it probably won’t be an easy one to solve. Calipari will either have to pull off an absolute coup by bringing in an established point guard (who’d certainly have greater guarantees elsewhere), take a chance on less of a sure thing in the portal, or roll with some combination of Dillingham, Sheppard and whoever returns for a backup point guard.

Either of the latter two options would likely cause worries throughout the season.

Someone at the ‘4’

Kentucky fans who followed the McDonald’s All-American Game and the coverage leading up to it were surely pleased with the performances of UK’s future freshmen but also left wondering what could have been if star forward Ron Holland — a major UK recruiting target at one point — had joined the Wildcats’ 2023 class.

While there’s plenty of potential throughout Kentucky’s projected roster, the Cats don’t have a versatile, high-energy, rebounding machine quite like Holland, who’s listed as a 6-8 power forward and will play for Texas next season.

Livingston could fill the “4” role if he returns, but he’d be undersized for the position and looking for a chance to prove himself as more of a perimeter player in a second year at Kentucky. Incoming freshman Justin Edwards is a 6-7 forward and the surest-thing in the class to make an immediate impact as a college freshman, but he seems more suited for the “3” spot.

Perhaps playing Edwards and Livingston together at those two positions would work, but that would necessitate a return by the latter, and that’s far from a sure thing. If Livingston leaves (and Collins does, too) the Cats will need someone who can play major minutes there.

And barring a major step forward by Ware, a physical transformation for Thiero, more positional versatility than is expected from Bradshaw and/or a shift to a less conventional lineup by Calipari, there doesn’t seem to be an answer on the current roster.

More shooting?

If Reeves returns, this might not be an issue. If he and Fredrick both come back (and Fredrick can stay healthy), that could be enough. But there’s still a lot of ifs for a team that has shown some considerable inconsistency shooting the ball in recent years. Dillingham and Sheppard are both capable outside shooters, but both are also streaky, and it’s never certain how a high school senior’s ability there will translate to year one of college basketball. Wagner has shown flashes from beyond the three-point line, but he’s inconsistent, too. Edwards has potential.

If Kentucky does find itself in need of extra shooting ability, that shouldn’t be too difficult to obtain through the transfer portal, but — barring a home-run, all-around addition — such a player is likely to come with some defensive limitations, and this roster doesn’t need much more of that.

Getting Reeves back — he was at 41.4 percent from deep before that disastrous Kansas State game — would go a long way toward shoring up a vital offensive need. If he leaves, the Cats will want a knockdown shooter to take his place.

Transfer portal outlook

So, obviously, Kentucky’s needs could be considerable this offseason, and Calipari and his staff’s ability to fill those areas will be hampered by stay-or-go decisions that could drag out for another several weeks.

Current college players have until May 11 to enter their names in the transfer portal. There’s no hard date for such players to make an actual decision regarding their next school, but it’s likely that many of the best available players this offseason will find new homes before May 31, which is when players like Tshiebwe and Reeves (and probably Livingston) will need to decide whether they’re coming back to school or staying in the NBA Draft.

UK should have a decent handle on what its current players plan to do, but someone springing a surprise and staying in the draft could leave Calipari scrambling with few good options, and an unexpected return might lead to a glut at one position, which might be a positive development for Kentucky’s depth but could lead to some hurt feelings and possible discord within the team.

There’s also the numbers game. Depending on those stay/go decisions and how they shake out, the Cats are likely to only add a couple (maybe three) players from the transfer portal, so filling every single need addressed here probably won’t be possible.

This is shaping up to be a complicated Kentucky basketball offseason. And while that No. 1 recruiting class looks good on paper, UK’s staff will need to make sure those highly touted freshmen are surrounded with other high-level talent.

And that’s not necessarily an easy task.

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