The 8 biggest questions on Kentucky basketball now that next year's roster is (mostly) set

It’s crazy how fast goes sometimes.

It really doesn’t seem all that long ago that the 2020-2021 Kentucky basketball season ended and fans were rightfully questioning just about everything in the program. From recruiting, to the style of play, coaching itself, assistant coaching; just about everything was an issue last year. And it needed to be fixed for this program to regain its footing as an elite one in college hoops.

Well fast-forward three whole months and a lot has changed. Out were five players from last year’s team. In were four new, really talented players who’ve committed since the season ended, to go along with four returnees and two additional freshmen that signed in the fall.

That’s right, outside of Davion Mintz’s ultimate stay-or-go pro decision, Kentucky’s 2021-2022 roster is set and just about all of them are on campus. Which also means that after spending three months wondering “What will the 2022 roster look like?” we now have our answer.

But even with the roster in place, questions remain.

With the team now on campus and in the midst of a statewide tour, here are the eight biggest questions to do with the 2021-2022 roster, and what they mean for next season.

1. What’s this offense going to look like and will it evolve?

Whenever a coach wins a big game, they always like to throw out some line about how “I’m only as good as my players.” But in many ways, players are only as good as their coaches as well. It doesn’t matter how much talent you have, if the coach doesn’t put them in position to succeed, they won’t.

Which also leads to what is likely the single biggest off-season question at hand: What the heck will this offense look like once this team takes the court?

In other words, we’ve seen the “two big, not enough shooting” offense at Kentucky for far too long. And after an off-season where Kentucky overhauled its roster with some of the best three-point shooting in the country, will Calipari actually put his team in position to take advantage or not? Will he go to a more modern three or four guard look with shooters all over the floor, the ones that won big at Baylor, Gonzaga, Alabama and other schools last season? Or will he stick with the tried and true “two bigs, not enough floor spacing” look that plagued this team last year?

Ultimately, this is the single biggest question at Kentucky this season: The Wildcats have some of the best three-point shooting in college hoops thanks to CJ Fredrick, Kellan Grady, Dontaie Allen and TyTy Washington.

Now John Calipari has to put in an offense to take advantage of it.

2. How quickly does Sahvir Wheeler gel with his teammates?

If “how quickly does the offense evolve” is the biggest question of the off-season at UK, then “how does Sahvir Wheeler mesh with his teammates” might be the second biggest.

Look, for all the criticisms of Calipari last year (which were completely justified by the way) he has put together a team that looks balanced across the board and really solid on paper heading into next year. There is a reason I ranked them No. 8 in my updated, “Post Transfer Portal Too Early Top 25” going into next year, after all (and that was even before Keion Brooks’ official announcement). But Wheeler is still the engine that will make things go. He is the perfect lead guard for this group, one that can create for himself, but at the same time is comfortable and confident setting up others. TyTy Washington can obviously play the one spot as well. But Wheeler is the guy.

And if he does click with his teammates, it takes this squad to a whole, other level.

It also leads to a much more fun question: If this guy averaged 7.5 assists per game at Georgia last year, imagine what he can do with more talent around him at Kentucky in 2021-2022?

3. How quickly does the team in general gel?

So for all the problems that came last year, I still contend that the biggest one remains this: The team simply didn’t have a normal off-season together. That’s not an excuse. Nor does it mean that with a normal off-season the 2021 squad would’ve won a title. They obviously wouldn’t have. But I also believe they would’ve been much better than they actually were. There’s simply no way to quantify how much it hurt last year’s team not to be able to run normal practices in the summer, or getting normal pick-up sessions in outside of the NCAA allotted hours.

That’s also why this off-season is so important. For this team to reach its full potential, it has to do what virtually every other Kentucky team did prior to last season — and that’s come together in the off-season.

The cross-state camp circuit over the next few weeks really should help with team bonding, and I can only hope that extra pick-up or time in the gym will help the on the court bonding as well.

Hey, at least things can’t get worse than last year, right?

4. What does the evolution of Keion Brooks look like?

In addition to my belief that the team itself was hurt by having a not normal off-season, Keion Brooks development was also slowed after he missed so much of the preseason and early regular season as well. Even when he came back and had a great first game against Florida, things never really got better from there. Nor could he carve out a clear role so late in the season. To quote John Calipari, I still loved his “fight” and still appreciated his leadership on a team that sorely lacked it. But it did stink that things never clicked for him.

Still, with a full off-season, he can be a dangerous player for this team. And he can be another X-factor if he can expand his game in the off-season as well. Why do I say that? Well, even with the off-season overhaul, there are still quite a few big guys on this roster who spend most of their time near the basket (Oscar Tshiebwe, Lance Ware, Daimion Collins). And it’s on Brooks to expand his game enough where he can stretch the floor and consistently hit jumpers. His three-point shooting percentage actually went down last season from his freshman year, but he did have games where he showed he can consistently make them.

Now he’s got to do it every game. And with a full off-season in the gym, it’s something I believe he’s capable of.

5. What does the evolution of Jacob Toppin look like?

There is a lot of incoming talent on this roster, but nobody with the exact dimensions and skills of Jacob Toppin. Heck there aren’t many people like him anywhere on the planet, with his size and length and the athleticism that comes with. It’s also why, when I polled an NBA exec about Kentucky’s NBA Draft prospects last year, the exec made sure to mention that he believed Toppin had NBA talent, and that 2021-2022 might be his year to shine.

Here is what the exec said in a story that ran on KSR at the time that almost perfectly encapsulates who Toppin could be.

“Think about it, this is a guy who wasn’t even supposed to be playing right now,” the exec said. “So what does he look like with an off-season, when he returns next year. Especially if, Isaiah Jackson, BJ Boston and Terrence Clarke are no longer there, along with Olivier Sarr and Davion Mintz. He’s definitely going to have a chance to reassert himself as ‘the guy.’”

While the last part about being “the guy,” isn’t going to end up being accurate, the rest is pretty much on point. And it’s worth noting that, as the exec said, Toppin wasn’t supposed to play at all last season and instead redshirt, making the fact that he became a consistent player off the bench, one of the few pleasant surprises of the lost 2021-2022 campaign.

So now, with a full off-season in Lexington and the confidence of last season behind him, how much better can he get? Especially since, according to his own reports (courtesy of KSR’s Nick Roush) he has apparently grown this summer and feels more confident in his game?

Can you say “breakout player?!”

Toppin spent the offseason growing another inch and working on his outside shot. He’s got confidence in his offensive game, poised for a breakout season.

— Nick Roush (@RoushKSR) June 1, 2021

6. How good can the freshmen be by the end of the season?

For the first time in pretty much forever, Kentucky’s freshman aren’t really the focus of the program. And that seems like a good thing. Old wins in college basketball, and it will be nice to have guys like Wheeler, Brooks, Tshiebwe and others to take some of the pressure off the young guys.

At the same time, both TyTy Washington and Daimion Collins will bring something to the roster no one else can. And it’s important that they get better through the season, no different than the vets.

And to be clear, that’s no disrespect to Bryce Hopkins, who I believe will play a big role for this team. But for now let’s focus on the other two, because again, each has a unique skill that really no one else on the roster has. Washington is a dynamic guard who can play both on and off the ball, in essence running the point when Wheeler is off the floor and hitting daggers when he is. Collins is the only true rim protector on the team and will serve a valuable role especially against bigger teams.

Again, it’s a good thing that Kentucky won’t rely too much on freshmen this year. At the same time, they will have a role. And for this team to reach its potential, will need to fill it.

7. Is there one final piece coming?

As we begin to hit the home-stretch of this article, let me just quickly hit on the sorta-maybe final Kentucky Wildcat, Davion Mintz. At this point I think it’s fair to say that Kentucky doesn’t necessarily need him for next year per se, but man oh man, would he be a nice to add to the already existing group.

First off, if Mintz does return, he can actually play the role he was supposed to when he arrived at Kentucky last year. Remember, when Mintz was recruited to UK, no one expected him to be the best option at point guard and certainly no one expected him to the team’s leading scorer by the end of the year. Instead, he was supposed to provide instant offense and three-point shooting off the bench. With so much talent and two legitimate point guards on the roster, that’s exactly what he could be. No creating for others, no running the point, no playing 36 minutes a game. Just come in and get buckets.

Plus, let’s be honest, you can never have too many veteran leaders on your roster.

Which actually leads me to…

8. How will the infusion of veterans on this squad help with maturity and how much winning will it lead to?

While there were all sorts of problems that popped up last season, I still contend the No. 1 problem that no one talked about was maturity. Yes, there were point guard problems and shooting problems on and on. But at the end of the day, there was just too much immaturity all season long, too many kids pulling in the wrong direction.

Well to be blunt, along with an infusion of actual talent on next year’s roster, what I like most is the maturity this group should provide. Just listening to Sahvir Wheeler in his opening press conference, the kid sounds like a 35-year-old grown man, not a 20-year-old college sophomore. Kellan Grady, CJ Fredrick and Oscar Tshiebwe have all been through the wars at the college level themselves. Add in two guys who emerged as leaders on last year’s roster, Keion Brooks and potentially Mintz, and that is a whole lot of guys who have seen it all in college hoops.

And to me, that serves two marquee purposes.

One, it will keep the younger guys in line. I’m not accusing Collins, Washington, Hopkins or anyone else of “being a bad kid” or anything like that, just that freshmen don’t know any better. I certainly didn’t at that age. Unfortunately last year’s freshmen had no one to really learn from and it showed once they took the court, with a group that was emotionally immature on and off the court.

That emotional maturity played a part in the disastrous 9-6 record. It just seemed like at every key moment, in every big game, when Kentucky could do the one thing they needed to do win, they’d instead go the opposite and find a way to lose.

In theory when you add in a bunch of vets, it should lead to more maturity in everything you do: How you practice, how you prepare and how you play.

Will it lead to the ultimate goals of an SEC title, deep tournament run and shot at winning it all late?

That all remains to be seen.

But as John Calipari is fond of saying, “I like this team.”