Ten ex-Kentucky players are still in college basketball. Their seasons haven’t gone well.
There are an extraordinary number of former University of Kentucky scholarship players competing elsewhere in college basketball this season. Ten, to be exact.
Pretty much all of them have had disappointing runs in the 2023-24 campaign.
The transfers range from Jemarl Baker — now at his fourth school after signing with UK way back in the recruiting class of 2017 — to a quartet of ex-Cats who played for Kentucky last season.
Here’s a look at how they’ve fared so far.
Season-ending injuries
The most-celebrated former Kentucky player coming into this college basketball season was Bryce Hopkins, who’s name was popping up on NBA draft boards toward the end of the 2022-23 campaign, before he’d even completed his first year at Providence and after playing sparingly as a freshman at UK the season before.
Hopkins opted to return to the Friars — even after head coach Ed Cooley bolted for Georgetown in the offseason — and was set to be the team’s star once again under Kim English, his third head coach in three years of college ball.
Things started off well enough, with Hopkins averaging 16.3 points and 8.7 rebounds over Providence’s first 13 games, leading the Friars to an 11-2 record and a 2-0 mark in the Big East. In game 14, he suffered a torn ACL, sidelining him for the rest of the season. Providence lost its first four games without him and went from No. 23 in the AP poll to the NCAA Tournament bubble.
A month before Hopkins was lost to injury, former Kentucky player Cam’Ron Fletcher suffered the same fate, injuring his right knee in Florida State’s loss to North Carolina and later being declared out for the rest of the season. Fletcher’s injury occurred on Dec. 2 — 363 days after he suffered a torn ACL in the same knee, ending his 2022-23 season.
Fletcher played sparingly in UK’s COVID-impacted 2020-21 season, but he had established himself as a starter and key player for the Seminoles before suffering the first injury, and he was expected to play a considerable role on this season’s team once he got back to full health.
Now, both former UK players will have a tough offseason of recovery ahead of them.
Can’t stay on the court
When he’s healthy, CJ Fredrick can be a lights-out 3-point shooter and complementary piece for a good college basketball team. Now in his sixth year on a college campus, the former Kentucky Sweet Sixteen MVP for Covington Catholic is dealing with injuries yet again.
Fredrick got off to a solid — though inconsistent — start to his first season for hometown Cincinnati, and he was listed among the nation’s top 3-point shooters early on. He was one of the country’s top shooters as he battled through injuries during two seasons at Iowa, then transferred to UK, where he missed the entire 2021-22 season with a hamstring injury before getting on the court — but again playing through injuries — last season.
He shot just 31.8% from deep in his one season of playing for the Cats, but he was shooting 44.0% through 11 games — and 10 starts — for the Bearcats before being sidelined due to a hamstring injury yet again.
Fredrick has not played since Dec. 22, and Cincinnati coach Wes Miller has not put a timetable on his return.
“But I think he’s heading in the right direction,” Miller said last weekend. “I do think he’s going to be back.”
The Bearcats were 10-2 at the time of Fredrick’s most recent injury, but they’ve struggled in their first season of Big 12 play, heading into this weekend with a 3-5 league record. They’re 12th in the Big 12 in 3-point shooting at 32.8%.
One of Fredrick’s UK teammates the previous two seasons, former McDonald’s All-American Daimion Collins, was hoping for a fresh start with LSU after enduring personal tragedy and on-court struggles during his tenure in Lexington.
Instead, Collins has once again been unable to stay on the floor.
The high-upside 6-9 forward has appeared in just six games for the Tigers and has not logged any time since playing 13 minutes against Northwestern State on Dec. 29 (and that game marked his first action in more than a month). His time on the sidelines has been due to a dislocated shoulder suffered in late November.
LSU head coach Matt McMahon, who was high on Collins’ potential impact in the preseason, said last month that the junior forward had been practicing with the team, but — going into Saturday’s game against Arkansas — he had still not appeared in an SEC game.
McMahon referred to Collins as “day to day” a couple of weeks ago.
Collins was viewed as a possible NBA draft pick before both of his seasons at Kentucky, though he ended up with limited playing time. His father died unexpectedly on the eve of his sophomore season. The Texas native is averaging 4.3 points and 2.2 rebounds in 10.3 minutes per game at LSU.
Former UK point guard Devin Askew — an oft-criticized player from the Wildcats’ ill-fated 2020-21 squad — led a terrible California team in scoring with 15.5 points per game last season, but he was sidelined midway through that junior year with a sports hernia injury.
Askew was less effective upon his return this season, averaging 6.2 points (sixth on the team), 4.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game — while shooting 31.3% from the field and 14.3% from 3-point range — before being lost for the season with a foot injury. Askew played just six games.
Cal coach Mark Madsen said last month that Askew would apply for a medical redshirt.
“Devin has been phenomenal,” Madsen said. “He’s been an unbelievable part of this team. And we’re heartbroken that he had to step back.”
Over his 79 games in college so far, the former five-star recruit has averaged 6.1 points and shot 36.5% from the field. Half of his career starts (20 of 39) came as a freshman at Kentucky.
Disappointing seasons
Three other former Wildcats have played full seasons, but they’ve all performed below the expectations coming in.
▪ Dontaie Allen was one of 10 preseason all-Conference USA honorees and one of two Western Kentucky players on that list. The former Mr. Basketball — at UK for the 2019-22 seasons — is averaging just 8.0 points and 2.8 rebounds in 19.6 minutes per game. He’s fifth on the team in scoring, fifth in playing time and seventh in rebounding, though he did have a 30-point performance last week against Sam Houston State, his first game with more than 17 points and just his fourth game with more than 10 points all season. Allen has started three consecutive games for the Hilltoppers, and he’s set season highs in minutes played in each of their past two games.
▪ Jemarl Baker will turn 26 years old in June and has been in college for seven injury-plagued years. This is his first season at New Mexico, where he started 11 of his first 13 games and played major minutes for the Lobos before seeing that playing time reduced in recent weeks amid more injury concerns. He’s played no more than 13 minutes in any of New Mexico’s last seven games. Baker is averaging 5.2 points in 18.6 minutes per game, though he is shooting a career-best 42.9% from 3-point range.
▪ Lance Ware was something of a fan favorite — and often drew praise from John Calipari — during his three seasons at Kentucky, but he left Lexington last year in search of a larger role elsewhere, ending up at Villanova, not far from his New Jersey hometown. Ware is averaging just 1.5 points and 2.2 rebounds in 11.0 minutes per game (similar to his numbers at UK last season) for a team that takes a five-game losing streak into Sunday’s matchup with Providence.
Ex-Cats in Seattle
The top individual performers from the group of ex-Cats over the course of this season have clearly been the Washington duo of Keion Brooks Jr. and Sahvir Wheeler, teammates on UK’s 2021-22 squad and now reunited in Seattle, the final year of college basketball for both players.
Brooks is averaging 20.6 points and 7.0 rebounds per game, tied for first place in the Pac-12 in scoring going into the weekend’s games. Wheeler is averaging 15.4 points and 6.0 assists per game, second in the league in the latter category and second behind Brooks in Washington’s scoring column.
The two former Wildcats have fared well, but even their season has come with a measure of disappointment. The Huskies were not highly regarded going into 2023-24, but an 8-3 record heading into league play — including a victory over then-No. 7 Gonzaga — got hopes up around a program that has been to just one NCAA Tournament in the past 13 years.
The season has gone south since, and Washington took a 4-6 Pac-12 mark into the weekend, moving from the NCAA Tournament discussion a month ago to a March Madness long shot as February begins.
NCAA Tournament outlook
Which former Wildcats might cross paths with Calipari and the current UK team this postseason?
The possibilities appear limited.
Obviously, Askew, Fletcher and Hopkins won’t be playing in the NCAA Tournament (and, of those teams, only Providence appears to have any realistic shot anyway).
Villanova (Ware) and Cincinnati (Fredrick) were listed as the first two teams out of the field in ESPN’s most recent Bracketology update earlier this week.
Washington will need a regular-season rally — or a Pac-12 Tournament title — to make it. The Huskies started the weekend at No. 71 in the NCAA’s NET ratings. LSU was even further down that list and started the weekend with a 3-4 record in the SEC, tied for 10th in the league.
For Allen to make his first appearance in an NCAA Tournament game, Western Kentucky would need to win the Conference USA title, which isn’t completely outside the realm of possibility. The Toppers are third in the league in the KenPom ratings, behind only Louisiana Tech and Liberty.
The only ex-Cat on a team widely projected to make the field at the moment is Baker, whose New Mexico Lobos are No. 19 in this week’s AP Top 25 poll and projected as a 7 seed in the latest ESPN Bracketology update. That team is coached by Richard Pitino (son of Rick Pitino) and the leading scorer is Jamal Mashburn Jr., the son of the Kentucky basketball great.
Baker has played in parts of six seasons over his college basketball career, but his only appearance in an NCAA Tournament came five years ago, when he was a redshirt freshman on the Kentucky team that advanced to the Elite Eight, getting on the floor in all four of UK’s games during that March Madness run.
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