Get to know the new players on the 2020-21 Kentucky basketball team
Jon HaleLEXINGTON - Kentucky basketball fans could be forgiven if they have lost track of a few of the new faces on the Wildcats' 2020-21 roster.
After all, eight of the nine players who scored a point in a game last season are gone. Nine new scholarship players have joined the team to replace that production.
With Kentucky's season set to start Wednesday versus Morehead State, catch up on all the nine new scholarship players and two returners with these stories from the Courier Journal.
Dontaie Allen
Class: Redshirt freshman
Position: Guard
Measurements: 6-foot-6, 198 pounds
Jersey number: 11
A year into his Kentucky basketball career, Dontaie Allen remains something of an unknown for John Calipari’s team.
The former Mr. Kentucky Basketball, who has not played a competitive game since December 2018 when he tore the ACL in his left knee, provides more intrigue than even the average in-state player beloved by Big Blue Nation thanks to his eye-popping stats at Pendleton County, where he averaged 42.9 points per game during his injury-shortened senior season.
Those wondering what Allen could provide to the Wildcats when healthy were handed another reason to dream big during the team's annual preseason Pro Day.
KEEP READING:Dontaie Allen's 'absurd' pro day measurements grow intrigue for former Mr. Basketball
Devin Askew
Class: Freshman
Position: Guard
Measurements: 6-foot-3, 198 pounds
Jersey number: 2
Devin Askew wants no part of the talk of Kentucky basketball’s West Coast slump.
“I’m not like other West Coast kids,” Askew said when asked about being so far from home. “That doesn’t affect me.”
Still, the Sacramento, California, native is at least aware of the conversation.
“A lot of West Coast kids want to stay home, and they’re afraid to go far for college and stuff like that,” he said when asked to explain how he was different from other players from the region. “That’s not me. I want to be different — and I am different. I feel like coming here was best for me, so I did it."
KEEP READING:Can Devin Askew end Kentucky basketball's West Coast recruiting slump?
B.J. Boston
Class: Freshman
Position: Guard
Measurements: 6-foot-7, 185 pounds
Jersey number: 3
B.J. Boston plays with a dollar bill in one shoe. By this time next year, he is almost certain to have millions more to choose from.
The freshman guard arrives at Kentucky as the Wildcats’ first consensus top-five signee since 2015. ESPN already projects him as a top-10 pick for the 2021 NBA draft.
The pressure from that hype might be suffocating for some players. For Boston, it's simply the next logical step in a career path forged to prepare him to thrive at basketball’s highest level.
“You’ve got to be confident in everything that you do,” Boston said in a recent interview with The Courier Journal. “That’s really my key to my success right there. … If you’re not confident or step in the room like you own the place, then you’re not going to have the right outcome that you’re looking for.”
KEEP READING:'He's built for that': How B.J. Boston prepared to be Kentucky's next one-and-done star
Keion Brooks
Class: Sophomore
Position: Forward
Measurements: 6-foot-7, 205 pounds
Jersey number: 12
There was not one single moment when the reality of Kentucky basketball’s roster turnover sunk home for Keion Brooks. That realization comes almost every time he steps into the practice gym.
“I still get that feeling every day,” Brooks said. “It’s just a different team, a whole different dynamic. … It takes some adjusting to getting used to. I was just accustomed to seeing Ashton (Hagans), seeing Tyrese (Maxey), Johnny (Juzang), all those guys every day. But you know, that’s kind of what you signed up for when you came to Kentucky. People aren’t going to be here long.
“I mean, it was a little weird being the only one coming back that’s played for (John Calipari), but it’s something I embrace and something I look forward to helping my teammates get acclimated to how we do things.”
KEEP READING:'I have no worries about being passed up by anybody': Keion Brooks remains key for UK
Terrence Clarke
Class: Freshman
Position: Guard
Measurements: 6-foot-7, 194 pounds
Jersey number: 5
Basketball observers have no trouble finding a variety of adjectives to describe Kentucky freshman Terrence Clarke’s game, but ask them to define the consensus top-10 recruit’s position, and the answers are not quite as easy.
“Versatility, I think that’s going to be one of his biggest things,” UK assistant coach Bruiser Flint said. “I think you can almost put him on any position on the floor to play.”
“I think positionally, he’s just a guard,” assistant coach Jai Lucas said with a laugh. “You can kind of just put him out there, and he can do a bunch of different things. I don’t think he fits in one lane at all.”
KEEP READING:'I don't think he fits in one lane': How Terrence Clarke's versatility could boost Kentucky
Cam'Ron Fletcher
Class: Freshman
Position: Forward
Measurements: 6-foot-6, 215 pounds
Jersey number: 21
Cam’Ron Fletcher has been in this situation before.
As a freshman at Vashon High School in St. Louis, Missouri, Fletcher joined a loaded roster coming off a state championship season.
“We were really, really talented,” Vashon coach Tony Irons told the Courier Journal this week. “He had to figure out a way to earn minutes coming in. … Probably could have gone to a bunch of other high schools and played a ton of minutes right away, but he wanted to challenge himself in practice to play against guys that would be able to make him better.”
Four years later, Fletcher finds himself facing many of the same challenges.
As the No. 65-ranked prospect in the class of 2021, Fletcher would be a centerpiece for many recruiting classes around the country. For Kentucky, he was the lowest-ranked prospect in the Wildcats’ No. 1-ranked class.
KEEP READING:How Cam'Ron Fletcher's quest for a challenge could speak well for his Kentucky future
Isaiah Jackson
Class: Freshman
Position: Forward
Measurements: 6-foot-10, 206 pounds
Jersey number: 23
Is a surprise performance really a surprise anymore if almost everyone is predicting it?
That is the question facing Kentucky basketball freshman Isaiah Jackson, once considered an under-the-radar prospect in the Wildcats’ No. 1-ranked 2020 class but now one of the most buzzed-about players on the 2020-21 UK roster.
“The other kid that’s surprised me is Isaiah,” UK coach John Calipari said just a couple of weeks after the start of full preseason practices. “Can do more than I thought.”
“I think he is probably one of the ones that is going to surprise a lot of people this season, just how he’s been playing and his development from the last time that I saw him and where he is today,” assistant coach Jai Lucas said last week. “I think he is a name that people will start to talk about and mention as we start playing games.”
KEEP READING:'You won't get any layups on him': Meet the Kentucky freshman coaches are buzzing about
Davion Mintz
Class: Graduate Student
Position: Guard
Measurements: 6-foot-3, 196 pounds
Jersey number: 10
At Kentucky, Creighton graduate transfer Davion Mintz will be counted on to mentor his five-star freshmen teammates while providing on-court production.
It’s a dual role he thrived in at various points of his career at North Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“He’s always been the guy who does the right thing,” North Mecklenburg coach Duane Lewis told the Courier Journal. “He wasn’t getting in trouble. He’s always so responsible and mature and willing to help others out and be there for someone. He’s carried that on into college.”
Mintz started all four years at North Mecklenburg, but as an underclassman, he served a complimentary role to C.J. Bryce, who led NC State in scoring last season as a senior. After Bryce graduated, Mintz took on the starring role.
KEEP READING:Kentucky transfer Davion Mintz has proven he can 'bring the best out in others'
Olivier Sarr
Class: Senior
Position: Forward
Measurements: 7-foot, 237 pounds
Jersey number: 30
Kentucky basketball fans' quest for updates on the status of Olivier Sarr’s transfer waiver could not rival the 7-footer’s own obsession with the process.
“Every day, every time (John Calipari) stepped in the gym, I’m like, ‘Hey coach, you got any news? You know when it’s coming? You got something for me? You got good news?’” Sarr said Wednesday. “He’s always like, ‘Relax, it’s coming. It’s coming.’”
Last week, the news Sarr had been waiting for finally arrived.
The NCAA and SEC had approved his request for a waiver to avoid the normal requirement that Division I transfers sit out a season. He could now play for Kentucky this year.
When Calipari texted Sarr with a direction to come to his office, the former Wake Forest center sprinted upstairs in UK’s Joe Craft Center.
The smile on Calipari’s face when Sarr walked in the room gave away the news, but it did not spoil the emotional release let out with a bear hug of his new coach.
“I didn’t really pick him up, but almost,” Sarr said with a laugh.
KEEP READING:Is hype growing out of control for Olivier Sarr? Kentucky's 7-footer sees move as 'win-win'
Jacob Toppin
Class: Sophomore
Position: Forward
Measurements: 6-foot-9, 194 pounds
Jersey number: 0
In 2020, no plan is safe. But not all surprises have to be for the worse.
When Jacob Toppin announced he was transferring from Rhode Island to Kentucky in April, the plan was to redshirt this season per normal NCAA transfer rules while working on his body to gain much-needed muscle.
After seeing how many waivers the NCAA was granting to allow transfers to play this season due to the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and the likely adoption of a one-time free transfer for all players next year, Toppin and UK coaches decided to pursue immediate eligibility after all.
"We all saw that practice was hard and we were all getting better every day," Toppin said Friday in his first interview with local reporters since being declared eligible for the 2020-21 season. "Coach saw that too. ... With COVID going on right now, we decided that we should take that chance to try to get a waiver."
KEEP READING:Jacob Toppin might be Kentucky basketball's best athlete, but can he help this season?
Lance Ware
Class: Freshman
Position: Forward
Measurements: 6-foot-9, 223 pounds
Jersey number: 55
It might go down as the most important shoe-tying in Kentucky basketball history.
UK freshman Lance Ware was a seventh grader measuring at close to 6-foot-5, but by his own admission, he “really didn’t know anything” about basketball.
So, when Louisville basketball legend and former NBA draft No. 1 pick Pervis Ellison watched Ware to decide if he should take Ware on as a trainee, it was not the way Ware played in a game of one-on-one that most interested Ellison.
“I liked his coordination in how he bent over to put his shoes on,” Ellison said with a laugh when recounting his first meeting with Ware in an interview with The Courier Journal. “He didn’t have to sit down on the ground. Put his shoes on standing up, tied them up. I was like, ‘That young man is pretty coordinated to be 6-4 and be the age he was.’
“It didn’t matter what he did the following 30 minutes when he played the young man one-on-one. I knew I was going to work with the young fella.”
KEEP READING:How a Louisville basketball legend helped Kentucky find its next Bam Adebayo
Email Jon Hale at jahale@courier-journal.com; Follow him on Twitter at @JonHale_CJ.