John Clay of the Herald-Leader has an excellent article out that explains why John Calipari has loaded up next season’s roster with freshmen.
According to Clay (and I agree with him), Kentucky’s young roster has nothing to do with NIL.
Simply put, older players don’t want to come to Kentucky to sit behind freshmen.
Here’s an excerpt:
That gives the Cats nine scholarship players heading into next month’s trip to Canada for the 2023 GLOBL JAM and then the 2023-24 college campaign. Seven of the nine are freshmen. Two are sophomores.
There’s still a chance Antonio Reeves could return once he completes summer course work at Illinois State to earn his degree. If Reeves instead transfers, that’s it. Without a late addition, UK would enter October practices with no juniors, no seniors and no one from the transfer portal.
Why? The reason is simple and has nothing to do with whether or not Kentucky is behind the times when it comes to name, image and likeness opportunities.
To this point, no experienced player wants to come to Kentucky and sit behind Calipari’s No. 1-ranked group of stellar freshmen.
