“These two play the way they do. Oscar plays the way he does,” Calipari said. “You needed one more guy to play and go get baskets, and play with that swagger that you have to play with in this tournament.”
But that guy might very well have been on Calipari’s projected 2022-23 roster at this time last year.
Shaedon Sharpe joined the Wildcats in the middle of the 2021-22 campaign with the stated intention of practicing with the team and then making his debut — as one of the most-hyped prospects in all of basketball — the following season.
It turned out to be a fine career move for Sharpe, but it resulted in scrambled 2022-23 plans for Calipari, who was banking on Sharpe to return to Lexington for a full season and become a major part of the Kentucky roster, with advisers in the young player’s camp signaling — both publicly and privately — that he would indeed be back with UK, pretty much all the way up until the announcement that he wouldn’t.
As Kentucky’s season went through an odd series of ebbs and flows — a far cry from the preseason expectations of a Final Four appearance — UK fans paying attention to the NBA highlights were left with a bad case of the “what-ifs” as they watched Sharpe throw down a series of “SportsCenter”-worthy dunks on a seemingly regular basis.
Sharpe’s reputation as a recruit was that of an advanced scorer with the size, length and elite athleticism to be a dynamic, instant-impact player on both sides of the court. Kentucky had no one else like him on this past season’s team, and — by the time it became clear he wouldn’t be returning to Lexington — it was far too late to try and find a comparable talent through the recruiting process or via the transfer portal.
But that guy might very well have been on Calipari’s projected 2022-23 roster at this time last year.
Shaedon Sharpe joined the Wildcats in the middle of the 2021-22 campaign with the stated intention of practicing with the team and then making his debut — as one of the most-hyped prospects in all of basketball — the following season.
It turned out to be a fine career move for Sharpe, but it resulted in scrambled 2022-23 plans for Calipari, who was banking on Sharpe to return to Lexington for a full season and become a major part of the Kentucky roster, with advisers in the young player’s camp signaling — both publicly and privately — that he would indeed be back with UK, pretty much all the way up until the announcement that he wouldn’t.
As Kentucky’s season went through an odd series of ebbs and flows — a far cry from the preseason expectations of a Final Four appearance — UK fans paying attention to the NBA highlights were left with a bad case of the “what-ifs” as they watched Sharpe throw down a series of “SportsCenter”-worthy dunks on a seemingly regular basis.
Sharpe’s reputation as a recruit was that of an advanced scorer with the size, length and elite athleticism to be a dynamic, instant-impact player on both sides of the court. Kentucky had no one else like him on this past season’s team, and — by the time it became clear he wouldn’t be returning to Lexington — it was far too late to try and find a comparable talent through the recruiting process or via the transfer portal.
