John Calipari announces decision on Shaedon Sharpe’s status for remainder of season

Shaedon Sharpe, the No. 2 overall prospect in the 2021 recruiting class, has yet to make his Kentucky Wildcats debut — and on Monday, head coach John Calipari gave a final word on his status: Sharpe will not play in the 2021-22 season.

“After talking with Shaedon and his parents, we want to end all of the speculation by again saying that he will not play for us this season,” Calipari said in a tweet. “He is committed to bettering himself and our team in practice this year and being better prepared to lead us next season.”

Sharpe, an 18-year-old true freshman, graduated early from high school and decided to enroll early at Kentucky. As a result, the talented shooting guard joined the Wildcats team over winter break, and Calipari had yet to provide any indication on whether he would be available this season.

Nick Roush of Kentucky Sports Radio reported on Jan. 31 that Jacob Toppin, Sharpe’s fellow Kentucky teammate, said that Sharpe had not yet participated in five-on-five portions of Kentucky’s practice. As of last week, he still appeared far from ready to make his SEC debut; Calipari reaffirmed that notion on Monday.

In somewhat surprising news, Sharpe — who turns 19 in May — was recently declared eligible for the NBA Draft. Had Sharpe not graduated early from high school, he would have enrolled in Kentucky next season and would be eligible for the 2023 NBA Draft; however, despite enrolling halfway through the academic year, he could still leave Kentucky for the NBA after this season. If Calipari’s tweet is any indication, though, Sharpe will not declare for the NBA Draft and will instead return to Kentucky.

“I just wish we had a bunch of practice time where I had two weeks with (Sharpe) to where we could run 3-4 different things and him defensively play because he’s a terrific player. I have told his parents that I’m not going to put him in a position where he hurts himself. I’m not,” Calipari said previously, via 247 Sports. “We’re going to do the process of this, and if he ends up playing this year because he’s capable of doing it and he can play, we’ll play him. But I’m not just shoving him in so we can win another game or stay closer. I’m not going to do that.”

Sharpe, a five-star recruit via the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies, has not yet appeared in a game — and evidently, he hasn’t appeared in the most critical part of practices either — and Calipari remains non-committal on his stance for the two-guard in the 2021-22 season.