For the first two months of the offseason, Kentucky basketball waited in hopes of getting Oscar Tshiebwe to return, but it’s getting into crunch time and Kentucky must start finalizing their roster before they play in the GLBL Jam this Summer.

As of right now Kentucky only has seven scholarship players on their roster, including five freshmen and two sophomores. With that being said, two players from the class of 2023 are expecting to have official visits this week. One that includes Joey Hart, who many people are expecting to be committing this week to Kentucky, even Matt Jones of KSR tweeted about a commitment coming soon.

Although Jones never said who it was in that tweet, he later revealed it to be Joey Hart on Monday’s Kentucky Sports Radio show. Hart, a three-star shooting guard from the class of 2023, had an excellent end to his high school season – especially with his 3P shooting – and recently decommitted from UCF as he started to receive interest from more prestigious programs such as Kentucky, Indiana, and Texas among others.

With that said, there is one other player that KY Insider has been told is “Kentucky’s to lose”.

Meet Jordan Burks, a 6-foot-9 forward who is also in the class of 2023, ranked as a three-star recruit. Playing at Overtime Elite, similar to Kentucky freshman Rob Dillingham, Burks was the league’s leading scorer. Following Kermit Davis’ firing from Ole Miss, Burks reopened his recruitment and is coming off a visit to Kentucky the last few days.

In a statement last week, John Calipari said “We’ve prepared for all scenarios”. The addition of Hart and Burks will certainly be good for depth, but the Wildcats still need to return Reeves and find one more high-impact player such as Arthur Kaluma.

The Kentucky-Louisville rivalry is one of the best in all of college basketball, however, it has been largely one-sided in the John Calipari era. Since becoming the Wildcats’ head coach in 2009, Kentucky has a 12-3 record against Louisville, including winning four of the last five.

With the hire of Kenny Payne, the Cardinals are hoping to get back on the right track and will enter next season with a roster talented enough to make it to the NCAA Tournmanent. With that said, the Cardinals did finish 4-28 last season.

Louisville commit Trentyn Flowers went live on Instagram on Friday to answer questions from the Cardinal fanbase. When asked who would guard DJ Wagner when Louisville played Kentucky, Flowers gave an interesting answer, “Y’all funny. Ain’t nobody worried about him, bro.”

With Flowers and Wagner both being top-rated recruits this is not the first time they have matched up with one another. At the John Wall Invitational back in December, Flowers and Wagner put it all on the line against each other. However, Wagner would outperform Flowers, yet again. Wagner put up 22 points to Flowers’ 19 points.

Then more recently, back in February, Wagner’s Camden (NJ) played against Flowers’ Combine Academy (NC) in an exhibition game. The Camden Panthers ended up beating the Combine Academy Goats by 23 points, 80-57.

Wagner will look to get the upper hand on Flowers once again this December, as Kentucky plays Louisville, and will have some extra motivation.

Returning just two players that played 5+ minutes per game last season, the biggest thing giving Kentucky fans any sense of optimism or hope is the incoming freshman class.

Featuring five players in the top 45, including three in the top 10, the 2023 class is Kentucky’s second No. 1 class since 2015. Even more interesting, the class features two of the three top five prospects the Wildcats have signed in that same span. In other words, there are high expectations.

Of course, five freshmen and two returnees can’t win a National Title, but while we await the staff to fill next season’s roster, the freshmen have started to move into campus at the Wildcat Coal Lodge.

On Wednesday, Reed Sheppard kicked things off as he backed out of the Kentucky-Indiana High School All-Star Classic to move in early. As the official Kentucky men’s basketball account put it, “the Sheppard Family legacy continues.”

On Friday, two more members of the freshman class moved into campus, Rob Dillingham and Aaron Bradshaw.

With Sheppard, Dillingham, and Bradshaw now moved in, that leaves just Justin Edwards and DJ Wagner to make their moves. That is expected to happen this week. With Kentucky representing the United States in Canada for GLBL Jam, starting July 7th, it will be important for this team to start building chemistry.