Feeling Blue? Nah

Tre Mitchell gives John Calipari's Kentucky roster a significant boost. Plus, Texas adds a key freshman, winners of the SEC schedule, and Shaka's secret sauce.

Author

Mike Miller
June 27, 2023

It’s the (mostly) quiet time in college hoops. Time to catch up on all the TV you’ve missed over the last 10 months. A recommendation? The Bear, on FX. If you’re a foodie, you’ll love it (and probably saw Season 1 last summer). If you’re a Duke fan, Season 2 is for you. Coach K plays a prominent role. Kinda.

Let's get to Monday’s news

1. Kentucky’s big addition

If history is written by winners, there’s a chance we’ll never remember the Great Kentucky Panic of June 2023.

Because all of a sudden, John Calipari’s got himself an SEC contender. Again.

Less than a week ago, Kentucky had nothing but freshmen on the roster. Then super senior guard Antonio Reeves elected to return to Lexington. And Monday, former West Virginia forward Tre Mitchell announced he’ll join him.

Mitchell, a 6-9 forward who’s played at UMass, Texas and last season at West Virginia, is ideal for the Kentucky roster. He can play inside and out (he made 36 percent of his 99 3-pointers last season, averaging 11.7 points) and will be a reliable rebounder (5.5 rpg). For a frontcourt that only has sophomore Ugonna Onyenso and freshman Aaron Bradshaw, he provides a boost.

“Tre is from Pittsburgh and I’ve known him for years,” Calipari said. “This was a unique situation but as soon as he put his name in the portal, he was a player I knew we needed to pursue. He brings leadership, experience, size and versatility and is a great fit for what we want to do. I know this is a win for us and I believe this will be a win for him, too. We are excited to have him as a part of our program.”

At the start of June, the ‘Cats had seven players on the roster. Now, it’s got 2023’s top recruiting class and two soon-to-be-23-year-old super seniors — who also happen to be All-SEC caliber starters.

They might add another player in August and should finalize the coaching staff soon. Nobody pulls off a magic act like John Calipari.

2. The portal never sleeps

Kentucky will enter the slow summer months with one open roster spot. But it’s hardly the only program still in search of players.

Among high-major programs, 17 schools still have an open scholarship, including likely preseason Top 25 teams such as Kansas, Marquette, North Carolina, Texas and Baylor.

Whether that’s a hindrance (depth is only an issue when you have injuries), or a bonus because of future flexibility (why use a scholarship on a guy who’s going to ride the bench?) is TBD.

And what about the schools over their max number of scholarships?

Per Andrew Parrish’s scholarship tracker, more than 25 programs are at 14 or more scholarship players. Some may re-enter the portal and others may play overseas. Then again, with about 500 players still in the transfer portal, things could still get messy this summer.

In Monday’s transfer portal activity:

3. ‘Horns hook a freshman

Texas needed some depth (see above). Monday, it got some with Chris Johnson.

Johnson, a 4-star guard prospect in the class of 2023, is a Texas native and one-time Kansas commit. The 6-5 combo guard was headed to Lawrence, but the Jayhawks’ roster revamp — especially with former Texas guard Arterio Morris — prompted Johnson to re-open his recruitment.

And he apparently always had Austin on his mind?

From On3.com: “I wanted to be closer to my family. I’ve always wanted to play for Texas basketball and wanted to start my legacy with ‘Texas’ on the front of my jersey.”

Johnson is unlikely to start for Texas (Max Abmas and Tyrese Hunter are locks), but he’s a good bet to get more playing time than he would’ve at Kansas given the Jayhawks’ depth and Bill Self’s proclivity for playing Dajuan Harris as much as possible. He should be a capable defender and a decent offensive option.

4. Transfers? Not for Shaka

Marquette’s superb 29-9 season included a sweep of the Big East regular-season and Conference Tournament titles and a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament. It featured the Big East POY (Tyler Kolek) and the two other all-league players (Kam Jones and Oso Ighodaro).

The thing it didn’t have? A new transfer on the roster.

Everyone on the 2022-23 roster was either a Marquette recruit or had spent at least two seasons there. Coach Shaka Smart, entering his third season with the Golden Eagles, isn’t adding any transfers this season, either. An anachronism? Or just common sense?

“If your coach is fishing or looking for somebody to come to your school, that’s obviously saying to the guys that are here, ‘We don’t think we have enough to win at the level we want to win at,’ and I feel like that can mess with guys,” Jones said. “I feel like that is a mental challenge that I’m grateful I really don’t have to go through.”

The more important part of the relationship to Smart is making sure the players know he cares simply by spending time with them. Smart said he still hears the voices of his first boss, Keith Dambrot, and mentor, George Raveling. Dambrot told his assistants, “You’ve got to spend time” with your players. Raveling always said, “You better make sure your talk-to-listen ratio is right.”

That’s what a big part of the summer months are about. (Marquette did have three players transfer out this spring, but those three played a combined 55 minutes.) Smart said the way to keep guys is by working on those relationships constantly.

“Every time I go into his office, you just feel that connection to the head coach,” Jones said. “That honestly makes you feel kind of invincible as a player to know my head coach genuinely believes in me and he’s a genuine friend of mine and someone I can call that has my best interests at heart.”

The entire article from CJ Moore is worth your time for its examination of a program dedicated to building a roster without the transfer portal. How does it work? Why is Smart focused on that?

Marquette will enter 2023-24 as a Top 10, possibly Top 5 team. Guess I already answered the latter question.

5. Shaking out the SEC schedule

The SEC dropped the basic schedule for 2023-24, announcing the start of conference play (Jan. 6) and each school’s conference opponent.

Everybody plays each other at least once. Then they have three games against permanent opponents (rivals/marquee schools), then two rotating games.

Jerry Stackhouse might have another rough season.

Will Warren used preseason Bart Torvik rankings to determine the number of games against projected Top 7 SEC teams, and 11 of the Commodores’ 18 games are against top teams. Five of ‘em are on the road.

Auburn has the least with seven games, and four on the road. Texas A&M might have another big season with eight and four.

Things could change (if you’ve read any other part of this newsletter, you know rosters are still in flux), but this is an early indicator of how the SEC might shake out. Find yourself some good A&M odds.

Grant entrance

Grant McCasland spent the last six seasons turning North Texas into one of Conference USA’s elite programs. Now he’ll try to re-position Texas Tech as in the Big 12. What challenges await? And does it make it more difficult when he’ll coach against good friends Scott Drew and Jerome Tang?

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