LEXINGTON, Ky. — Their final game finished and Kentucky’s basketball season officially done, the Wildcats filed off the court in Greensboro Coliseum on Sunday afternoon. The last Cat to leave the playing surface was freshman Chris Livingston, his head down, and UK assistant coach Chin Coleman walking alongside with a consoling arm draped over the 19-year-old’s shoulder.
Will that be the final time Livingston is seen in a Kentucky uniform? Or was it simply the end of the first chapter in what will become a longer UK basketball story?
Back in the team’s locker room, a few minutes after the Wildcats’ 75-69 loss to Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament’s second round, Livingston was asked if there was a scenario in which he could imagine himself back with Kentucky next season.
“Possibly,” he said.
Usually one of the most loquacious players on this UK basketball team, that was the full extent of Livingston’s reply. Whatever he ultimately decides could have a profound impact on the Wildcats’ 2023-24 season.
Kentucky once again has the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class on board, and it’s a group that features five highly touted prospects — four of them ranked in the top 10 nationally for the 2023 cycle, and three ranked in the top five, according to the 247Sports composite rankings.
But even if the majority of those recruits pan out as solid college basketball players right off the bat, they’re going to need some help. And this Kentucky program is expected to lose quite a bit this offseason.
John Calipari said after the Kansas State loss that he expects all of his seniors — which includes Oscar Tshiebwe, Jacob Toppin, Sahvir Wheeler, CJ Fredrick and Antonio Reeves — to leave, even though all have college eligibility remaining. None of those decisions are final, but Tshiebwe, Toppin and Wheeler, at the very least, are all widely expected to depart UK’s program, and Fredrick and Reeves very well could, too. Freshman guard Cason Wallace is also expected to jump to the NBA draft, where he’s projected as a lottery pick.
The only other player on this Kentucky roster that averaged double-digit minutes for the Cats this past season is Livingston, who’s also among the players — and more so than a few of the previously mentioned ones — that could realistically take a major jump in another year of college.
The 6-foot-6, 220-pound wing had to find a way to fit in as a freshman. It took time, it wasn’t always easy, and Livingston didn’t cement himself as a 30-plus-minutes guy until February, but when he finally clicked into his role, he became a major part of Kentucky’s identity.
“Coming out of high school, I was always worried about scoring,” he said last weekend. “Always had the ball in my hands. But I feel like — since I’ve been here — I’ve done a much better job of just guarding the ball … rebounding, getting offensive rebounds, hustling, making sure that I play hard every possession, and doing the little things. Just playing my role for this team and doing what this team needs me to do.”
After not playing 30 minutes in a single game until Jan. 31, Livingston eclipsed that number in 10 of the Wildcats’ final 11 games. That stretch included five double-digit scoring games and double-doubles in back-to-back wins over Tennessee and Florida last month, but — even when he became a major-minutes player — Livingston was never asked to shoulder the scoring load. He averaged just 6.3 points and 4.2 rebounds per game for the season.
He also showed flashes that indicated he might be able to do a whole lot more offensively in year two, if he actually returns to make that happen.
Will Livingston return to Kentucky?
The easiest Calipari-era comparisons for a player like Livingston and a possible year-two impact would be Terrence Jones and PJ Washington, though the circumstances don’t quite match up. Both of those former Cats’ numbers were well ahead of Livingston’s after one season, but both were also playing very different roles on considerably different rosters. In Jones’ case, the top three scorers on his first Kentucky team were all freshmen. In Washington’s case, the top five scorers were freshmen. Each got many more scoring opportunities than Livingston did.
Livingston, of course, played on a team that featured three seniors — Tshiebwe, Reeves and Toppin — at the top of the scoring column and other veterans playing large roles.
It’s looking likely that Calipari will return to more of a youth-movement approach next season — relying on top recruits like DJ Wagner and Justin Edwards to become stars — and that could make Livingston a veteran of sorts, even though he’d still be a teenager up until Big Blue Madness.
It would also make him an invaluable piece of Kentucky’s 2023-24 puzzle.
If Livingston does come back, he’d return as a player not often seen in the Calipari era — one that still has NBA-type potential but also possesses the experience of playing under the Hall of Fame coach, understanding what makes him tick, and knowing how to relay that to teammates.
On a couple of occasions late in the season when Calipari was displeased with Livingston’s play and took him out of the game, Toppin intercepted the freshman before he could get back to the Kentucky bench — sensing he was frustrated and might get into it with the coach — and calmed him down before any potential sideline eruptions. Toppin explained in Greensboro that he had been through similar instances and knew — from three seasons of playing under Calipari — how to communicate with the coach in those moments, so he relayed that to his younger teammate in the heat of the moment.
Calipari is bound to have quite a few of those outbursts next season — with so many young players — and Livingston, who’s proven himself to be a thoughtful person off the court and a hard-worker on it, fits the profile of someone who could slide into a leadership role while at the same time shouldering more of the overall production load during games. The seniors might all be gone. The freshmen can’t do it all. And UK would have a difficult time finding anyone in the transfer portal matching Livingston’s immense upside.
So, will he come back to Kentucky?
Livingston was not listed at all on the most recent 2023 NBA draft boards from ESPN, USA Today or Yahoo Sports, and a Top 100 prospects list from The Athletic this month ranked Livingston at No. 72 overall. (There are only 58 picks in this year’s draft.)
That indicates that — while he’s not projected as an NBA selection this summer — he’s still very much on the radar as a possible pick. The most likely scenario appears to be that Livingston will go through the draft process and then have a decision to make. And he’s used to big decisions.
Two years ago at this time, he was faced with staying in his hometown of Akron and continuing to dominate the local competition for another season or moving on to one of the major prep schools. He chose to go to Oak Hill Academy in rural Virginia and work on his game.
Not long after that came a final decision on his recruitment. He could have gone the G League route or picked a college program that was guaranteeing a much bigger role on the court. He chose to play for Kentucky, knowing the Wildcats’ roster was likely to be loaded with older players.
In both cases, there were voices around him advocating for other routes. In both cases, Livingston chose the more challenging path, but the one he thought would be best for his long term basketball future.
And that even carried over into his freshman season at Kentucky, where he struggled early on to find his place after years of being the best player on his team. After those early games, he was also hearing that his role should be bigger, that he should be playing more. He stayed the course.
“That was him focusing or listening to all of the clutter around him,” Toppin said last weekend of those early struggles. “But he’s gotten away from that.”
Now, Livingston will be faced with a third difficult decision regarding his basketball future. In an interview with the Herald-Leader last weekend, he acknowledged that there are people around him who will weigh in on what they think he should do. It’s safe to say there will be some differing opinions. In the end, he said he’s always taken particular stock in his mother’s input.
“But it’s definitely my decision to be made,” the 19-year-old said of any final decision.
That same day — about 24 hours before the loss to Kansas State — Calipari said he was proud of Livingston (and Wallace) for making the necessary sacrifices for this UK team, even if it meant lesser roles than his star freshmen usually enjoyed.
A few minutes after Kentucky’s season ended, Livingston looked back on his freshman year.
“Coach tells you when you commit to come here: ‘It’s not for everybody.’ And I really understood it, but it’s really not,” he said. “When you’re really in it, it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. Mentally, personally — a lot of ups and downs. But it made me a better person through it all. I can just take the lessons that I learned, in life, from this season. Just dealing with it, and going through it. And I feel like, this team — we fought so much, and we dealt with so much — and we can be nothing but proud of each other.”
