Following weeks of speculation, John Calipari attempted to put an end to it Monday morning.
Star basketball recruit Shaedon Sharpe will not play basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats this season, the UK coach announced on social media, clearly hoping to bring a halt to the will-he-or-won’t-he fervor surrounding the 18-year-old’s presence on the team.
“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 on Twitter. “He is committed to bettering himself and our team in practice this year and being better prepared to lead us next season.”
Sharpe — a 6-foot-6 shooting guard from Ontario — was the No. 1 basketball recruit in the 2022 class before deciding to leave high school early and enroll in classes at UK for the current semester. He joined the team last month and has been practicing with the Wildcats for the past few weeks.
The original plan was for Sharpe — one of the most dynamic scorers in high school basketball — to sit out the remainder of this season as a practice player while working on his game and his strength and conditioning in preparation for his college debut in the 2022-23 season. Calipari and Sharpe’s camp left the door open for a possible playing debut this winter, however, and the speculation around that scenario intensified when it was revealed that Sharpe might be eligible to enter this year’s NBA Draft.
Calipari further stoked that speculation — whether he intended to or not — with comments on his weekly radio show a couple of weeks ago, confirming that Sharpe was by that point taking part in full practices and wowing some of his new teammates.
“I think our team would like me to put him in,” the UK coach said Jan. 24. “We’re doing stuff, and something happens in practice — he does something — and they all kind of look at me like, ‘C’mon, now. That’s who he is? Put him in.’ But you got to make sure you’re looking after him.”
Calipari said then that Sharpe still needed to get more reps in and would be largely limited in what he could do on the court if he were to play this season. The UK coach did talk up his extraordinary scoring abilities, though, and he acknowledged that was something the team might need moving forward.
At that time, leading backcourt scorer TyTy Washington was sidelined with an ankle injury, and his playing status for the immediate future was not clear. Washington returned to the court in an 80-62 victory at Kansas five days later, and the Cats have been clicking when everyone in their backcourt is healthy.
Kentucky is ranked No. 5 nationally and has won eight of its last nine games. The Cats’ only two losses since Dec. 11 have come on the road against Louisiana State and No. 1 Auburn. In both of those games, Washington and starting point guard Sahvir Wheeler went down with injuries and had to miss extended periods of time.
When Washington, Wheeler, Kellan Grady and Davion Mintz have all been healthy at the same time, Kentucky has looked like arguably the No. 1 team in the country. While Calipari is certainly being careful with Sharpe’s development, he’s probably also hesitant to mess with the chemistry that has led to the Wildcats entering the conversation for a No. 1 seed in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
Shaedon Sharpe’s future at UK
Sharpe’s basketball mentor, Dwayne Washington, told the Herald-Leader recently that the star player would not enter the 2022 draft unless he played and performed well for the Cats this season, and Calipari has repeatedly said that he expects to have Sharpe on next season’s roster.
The wording of the UK coach’s statement Monday morning would indicate that is still the plan, though speculation will surely continue over Sharpe’s basketball future.
Kentucky assistant coach Jai Lucas was talking with reporters Monday morning as part of UK’s regularly scheduled press conference when Calipari’s tweet regarding Sharpe’s playing status was posted.
“This was always kind of the plan for him to just practice — kind of take this year to just practice and develop his body and get ready for next year,” Lucas said. “But when you get here, you get around the team and stuff, you get excited, and you want to play in the game. …
“It started to get a lot of noise and stuff, so he was just ready — and Shaedon and his family were ready — to move forward and focus on what’s the next step. Him knowing he’s not going to play and just continuing to develop and continue to grow his game and grow his body and get ready for the following year.”
Lucas said Sharpe can still be a valuable member of this season’s team — one with realistic national title goals — even though he won’t be playing in actual games for the Wildcats.
“I mean, he’s a high level practice guy,” the UK assistant said with a laugh. “You’re not going to run into too many practice guys like that. … You’ve got to guard him. He’s coming at you. He’s becoming aggressive. He’s getting more comfortable in practice.
“So, it’s good for him, too. But it’s good for others because he’s a different type of athlete that you don’t see every day.”
ESPN ranks Sharpe as the No. 7 overall prospect for this year’s NBA Draft, and he’s widely projected as a top-10 pick if he were to leave Kentucky after this season. While Calipari’s brief statement might quell speculation over the possibility that he will play this season, it likely won’t do much to end the chatter that Sharpe could leave Lexington for the 2022 draft without ever playing a game for the Wildcats.
Washington, who coached Sharpe on the Nike circuit and helped guide him through his college recruitment, has pushed back hard against that narrative in previous conversations with the Herald-Leader this winter. The grassroots basketball coach said Sharpe’s focus has been on getting better now to be fully prepared for when he gets to the NBA — as opposed to jumping to the draft for a quick payday — and part of the plan involves playing in actual games for Kentucky against college competition.
“He knows the kid’s not going anywhere,” Washington said of Calipari in an interview a couple of weeks ago. ”He knows if the kid doesn’t play, the kid’s coming back. Does Calipari look worried to you? Nope. Because everything we say, we do.”
