Tre Mitchell is the plug-and-play veteran piece Kentucky needs

It’s not often a clear-as-day fit falls into your lap midway through the summer. And this one shouldn’t have happened, either. No one anticipated a disaster month-plus for Bob Huggins, one that saw his legendary career come to an end following a DUI arrest in Pittsburgh where a breath test determined his blood alcohol content was 0.21% — almost triple the legal limit. Just weeks before that, an anti-gay slur resulting in a suspension and salary reduction.

Huggins resigned and retired, opening a 30-day window for West Virginia players to enter the transfer portal with immediate eligibility. And it just happened to come during an offseason where the Mountaineers reeled in one of the top transfer classes in college basketball, headlined by former Syracuse standout Jesse Edwards, Arizona guard transfer Kerr Kriisa and Montana State star RaeQuan Battle.

Kriisa has already decided to hit the portal, while fifth-year veteran guard Joe Toussaint plans to do the same. Other players are playing wait-and-see with WVU as the program weighs its coaching options — current assistants Ron Everhart and Josh Eilert have already interviewed for the job, while UAB’s Andy Kennedy plans to do the same, per Stadium’s Jeff Goodman. The school hopes to name a head coach by Monday.

Fifth-year forward Tre Mitchell wasted no time making his intentions clear following Huggins’ departure. After days of rumors indicating a transfer was on the horizon, he decided to hit the portal on Thursday and officially entered Friday morning, opening the door for direct contact from interested schools.

Kentucky emerged almost immediately as the overwhelming favorite, a visit to Lexington in the works as we speak. And if we’re being totally transparent, the dots started being connected days ago both publicly and privately.

Prior coaching and family connections made it too obvious to ignore — no tampering necessary. Mitchell’s stepfather, Tony Bergeron, coached Tyreke Evans at American Christian Academy in Aston, Pennsylvania and was instrumental in getting him to Memphis to play for Coach Cal. He grew up in Springfield when Calipari was at UMass and modeled his own coaching style after him — you can still get your hands on Tony Bergeron: The Secrets of the Dribble-Drive Motion Offense on DVD.

Calipari’s history as a Five-Star Basketball camper and instructor is well-documented. Bergeron was also a coach and instructor at the historic camp.

Need more connections? Mitchell also played for the Basketball Stars of America AAU program, where Adou Thiero, Nate Sestina and Jonny David also started their careers. The 6-foot-9 forward is a Pittsburgh native — Calipari is from Moon Township, PA and Orlando Antigua played and coached at Pitt — and began his collegiate career at UMass (where Bergeron also served as an assistant coach).

The list is extensive and thorough. On-court fit aside, the opportunity for mutual interest thanks to decades-long relationships truly couldn’t be clearer. This kid was meant to play for John Calipari at Kentucky.

And then there’s who Mitchell is as a basketball player, his experience and position. A versatile 6-9, 225-pound forward who averaged 11.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists per contest as a senior in Morgantown. He shot 47.0% from the field, 36.4% from three (36 makes on 99 attempts) and 78.9% at the line. Over the course of his four-year career — he played at UMass from 2019-21, then Texas in 2021-22 — he’s averaged 13.7 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, never shooting below 47% overall, 33% from three or 73% at the line.

A 4-3 forward with solid footwork and shooting touch, he’s also comfortable putting the ball on the floor and drawing fouls at the rim. As a defender, he’s capable of guarding multiple positions, grading out as elite on that end of the floor in each of his first three seasons of college basketball and solid in year four at WVU. He finished with the second-highest offensive rating of his career (110.0) this past season in Morgantown.

Like his stepdad back in the day, Mitchell himself has instructional videos for sale to help teach the next generation of basketball standouts. His online course? Becoming a Dominant Hybrid Player with Tre Mitchell.

Concerned about Aaron Bradshaw’s health and timeline for return? Insert Mitchell, a starting-caliber forward talent capable of filling the four role the five-star freshman is expected to man when he gets back on the floor. This is a player with 102 career games played and 92 total starts, averaging 27.8 minutes per contest across that span. He’s not just solid in a pinch, he’s the perfect complementary piece — with or without Bradshaw.

It also opens the door for versatile lineups with shooting and scoring from every position on the floor if you want to play him next to the 7-foot-1 newcomer. Calipari can get creative as hell if he wants to with Mitchell in the fold, especially on offense.

Above all else, it’s a much-needed veteran piece for a team with just one scholarship upperclassman in Antonio Reeves — and he just rejoined the program this week. Seven freshman pieces in Bradshaw, DJ Wagner, Rob Dillingham, Justin Edwards, Reed Sheppard, Jordan Burks and Joey Hart, eight if and when Somto Cyril joins the fold later this summer.

The two vets before Reeves’ return? Ugonna Onyenso and Adou Thiero, who combined for 301 minutes in year one. They’re not much different than typical freshmen anyway.

Calipari is clearly all-in on the blue-chip newcomers going into 2023-24, but something had to give somewhere. They couldn’t do it alone, thrown into the fire of high-level college basketball with no life raft, sink or swim. Reeves gives you a safety net at guard, and assuming Mitchell ultimately signs with the Wildcats, there’s your forward help. There’s your Bradshaw injury insurance and potential mismatch piece.

The West Virginia transfer has to get on campus and put pen to paper, but things are trending in the right direction. And though it comes in unfortunate circumstances following Huggins’ ugly departure, it’s also exactly what this Kentucky basketball roster is (was?) missing.