2024 Roster (Enter Antonio Reeves & Tre Mitchell)

[Joneslab]

Every April we hear who’s leaving. Every summer Cal pieces together a roster that gets me excited about the possibilities. Every late February into March we’re on here frustrated with results and things Cal could be doing differently. How many years in a row of this before it’s OK for a fan to be skeptical? Surprise changes may well be yet to come. None of the freshman are here yet. Livingston and Reeves are not officially coming back.

No one will be more pleased and excited than me if it works out this time. But I’m a bit tired of being duped.

GO CATS!

I actually wasn't that excited two years ago. I thought there were pretty big holes in the roster. We turned out to be better than I thought before the late collapse.

Was more excited last year because I thought Oscar would make a jump. Also thought Daimion Collins would be significantly better, Livingston would be more consistent, Toppin wouldn't go through the trouble he did early, and especially thought Sahvir Wheeler would at least be the same player he was the year before. None of those things turned out to be true.

In 2020 I had major misgivings about the roster, which turned out to be a good take when we got beat by Evansville. But that team turned it around in a way I never expected and (mostly because of the consistency of Quickley and Richards) were WAY better than I thought they'd be at the end.

This is all to say that I'm actually *not* excited every year if by "excited" we're talking about our feelings on whether a team can win it all or not. The last team I thought could really win it, just going by the roster, was in 2019.

To me all this is a glaring indication that Cal has dropped way back in recruiting and actually *hasn't* given fans enough to be excited about in the last few years, at least not consistently. This is a difference with this coming season...but there remain a lot of roster questions still out there.

[Catsrock]

I don’t recall exactly when Shaedon Sharp made official that he was going to the draft. But as of April 21, 2022 I was very excited that LAST year was back to the type of class Cal used to thrive with. I was duped. And there are those who aren’t convinced our incoming freshman are as ready to roll as earlier top rated classes—even if they all make it here.

Again, I have hope—but will have to see to believe 😜

[DA#23]

Calipari tweeted that Daimion had also lost his grandfather in the last week. I feel awful for him, as I had experienced multiple deaths in the family during my freshman year at UK.

Sometimes a fresh start, closer to home, just makes sense and I hope it does for him.

[Joneslab]

I don’t recall exactly when Shaedon Sharp made official that he was going to the draft. But as of April 21, 2022 I was very excited that LAST year was back to the type of class Cal used to thrive with. I was duped. And there are those who aren’t convinced our incoming freshman are as ready to roll as earlier top rated classes—even if they all make it here.

Again, I have hope—but will have to see to believe 😜

It was essentially a two-man class, though. I was pretty confident in Wallace but I'd read that Livingston was a high-motor, athlete-but-not-yet-a-player type...and both turned out to be true.

Minus Sharpe I'm not sure what was there to indicate that was a vintage Cal class?

I will say that Cason Wallace stands up as a vintage Cal freshman. Absolutely.

Generally with Cal you're looking at whether (a) the freshmen live up to the hype and (b) he has enough returners to offset the very real possibility a freshman doesn't live up to the hype.

The most powerful Cal teams here have been those with that dynamic mix between young and old, inside and outside. The freshmen live up, the vets live up, the coach lives up. In 2022 Collins and Hopkins were "normal" freshmen but they were offset by Oscar having such a historic year. That's probably the only example I can think of since Cal's been here where the freshmen were uneven but we still had a contender.

I don't really buy the adage that Cal has to have a boatload of talent to win because I think that holds true with most coaches. I don't think we've had really rock-solid, contender-level talent here for a few years. As I said you've gotta go back to '19. That's quite awhile when these coaches make such astronomical money.

[Joneslab]

^ And just as an aside, I don't think you have to have a rock-solid roster to win a championship in college basketball. It helps but it's not a must.

The game is so weird nowadays with the portal, one-and-dones, G-League players diluting the talent, and so on that you can have a team "get hot at the right time" and win a championship. That's more true now than it's ever been.

But having a solid roster with very few holes obviously ups your chances and (generally) firewalls you against March weirdness.

[Lighthouse]

OR you could say that this is the sort of roster than Calipari traditionally is more comfortable coaching. How about some positivity in here?

The positivity you missed is in the first sentence. My thoughts on Calipari have not changed and won't until he earns some positive thoughts. Some folks seem to forget how we always get excited soon after let down after let down, and Cal's view of our basketball program, but I don't. He embarrasses me with the mish mash talk he expects us to believe every year, plus his behavior on the bench screaming at our team. He could care less about what I think, and I know that, but I believe WCN is a place where we can express our thoughts. I was a Kentucky Fan before a lot of you were born, and I will be until God calls me Home.

[Catsrock]

^ This time last year Cal said we had Sharp.

Along with Wallace and Livingston. And supposedly had ****************burn OR Bona. That was after about 2 hours of definitely getting Lively. Things were looking good. Old threads would remind you excitement was pretty high.

[Joneslab]

^ This time last year Cal said we had Sharp.

Along with Wallace and Livingston. And supposedly had ****************burn OR Bona. That was after about 2 hours of definitely getting Lively. Things were looking good. Old threads would remind you excitement was pretty high.

I think we're talking two different things.

I'm talking only after the roster is set.

I'm not arguing really anything other than this idea that people say stuff like, "Eh, we have the number one class every year and just get our hopes dashed!" All number one classes aren't the same, and also the returners around those classes haven't been the same.

This has the potential to be vintage Cal...but a lot of things have to happen first. If we got Dickinson, returned Reeves, and picked up one more or got a Livingston return I'd personally be as excited* as I've been at least since 2019.

* I'm excited every year when October rolls around. But it's not the same kind of excitement. Here recently I've thought Kentucky would need a lot of luck to contend.

[capcat]

Calipari tweeted that Daimion had also lost his grandfather in the last week. I feel awful for him, as I had experienced multiple deaths in the family during my freshman year at UK.

Sometimes a fresh start, closer to home, just makes sense and I hope it does for him.

So true.

[Ratt]

Dickinson
Dillingham
Reeves
Wagner
Bradshaw
Edwards
Sheppard
Thiero
Onyenso
Ware
Livingston/Knecht/Cleveland

There is your roster.

Knecht gone to Tennessee.

[TrueblueCATfan]

So true.

I agree also.....at times like this you need to be close to family

[40bill]

I have no problems with kids wanting a chance, or a change, or especially to be closer to family.
I have a problem with running a University team as a G League.
I also don't have problems with a players first mentality UNTIL IT DAMAGES A TEAM. it used to be called the Star System: two or three good players with guys willing to be support. Al MacGuire did that long before Phil Jackson.

Kentucky's issue is EVERYBODY is the STAR right now, this minute.
Highlight guys waiting for a contract. Not waiting long either.

Our head coach doesn't seem suited now to handle that. At one time he was super at it. Other coaches marveled.

Whatever happened, it just isn't working.

[Joneslab]

I'd accept continuous roster turnover only if we won a ton of games and made Final Fours.

I used to say this back in Cal's early days. When people bemoaned the one-and-dones I always pointed out how during the Tubby era we craved draft picks and freshmen phenoms. The whole thing back then was that we couldn't get enough of them.

I like the opposite of that. The problem is in the last 4+ years we haven't gotten enough of those guys and we're still turning the roster over.

Thus: mediocrity.

[justford]

A mercenary is one that serves only for wages​. Has NIL created mercenaries instead of student athletes? Sure seems to be the deciding factor for recruits and who can blame them🤷‍♂️

[Joneslab]

A mercenary is one that serves only for wages​. Has NIL created mercenaries instead of student athletes? Sure seems to be the deciding factor for recruits and who can blame them🤷‍♂️

I think it's a little more complicated than this.

There's a bunch of gray area there when you're talking about "student athletes." The landscape has moved away from student into athlete and that goes back long before the NIL was a gleam in Ed O'Bannon's eye.

It's been said countless times that UK players in the Cal era are mercenaries. One look at how devastated these guys are when they lose in March tells you that isn't true. But...it's not completely untrue either. The idea that they're coming here because we're UK and/or because of our tradition is laughable.

However I think you can play your guts out for UK, love being here, loved playing in college...and still have the dream of playing in the NBA. All those things can be true at the same time.

The same holds for NIL. Just because they want to make money doesn't necessarily mean they aren't student athletes in the traditional sense of the word. They should've been making money for years and years...however the landscape as it exists now is pretty much the wild west and will have to be regulated at some point.