It was apparent Friday when Creighton guard Davion Mintz announced he was using the graduate transfer rule to come to Kentucky that UK star Immanuel Quickley would be turning pro.
Quickley, the 2019-20 SEC Player of the Year according to league coaches, made it official Monday that he was putting his name in NBA Draft and retaining an agent, officially ending his Wildcats career.
Kentucky has now seen all three of its starting guards from this past season — sophomores Quickley and Ashton Hagans and freshman Tyrese Maxey — enter the 2020 NBA Draft.
As a result, the importance of adding a veteran guard such as Mintz is magnified.
With Mintz on board, 2020-21 will be the third straight season that UK has added a fifth-year senior via the graduate transfer process.
Forward Reid Travis came from Stanford for the 2018-19 season. Travis became a core player (11.2 points and 7.2 rebounds) on an Elite Eight team.
Before the just concluded season, John Calipari added forward Nate Sestina from Bucknell. Sestina became a rotation player (5.8 points and 3.8 rebounds) on an SEC championship team.
Now, comes Mintz, who averaged 9.7 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists while starting all 35 games for Creighton in 2018-19. The 6-foot-3, 185-pound Charlotte product sat out last season while recovering from a high ankle sprain.
UK is also one of 10 finalists in the recruitment of 7-foot-3 former Purdue center Matt Haarms, so the Wildcats might add a second grad transfer for 2020-21.
Even Kentucky, the program most associated with the one-and-done model, is through its actions now prioritizing experienced players.
To understand why that is smart one need only look at the teams that have been playing for NCAA championships in recent years.
— 2019: NCAA champion Virginia started a redshirt junior, two juniors, a redshirt sophomore and a freshman.
NCAA runner-up Texas Tech started three redshirt seniors and two sophomores.
— 2018: NCAA champ Villanova started three redshirt juniors, a junior and a redshirt freshman.
NCAA runner-up Michigan started a senior, a redshirt junior, a junior, a sophomore and a freshman.
— 2017: NCAA winner North Carolina started two seniors and three juniors.
NCAA runner-up Gonzaga started a senior, three redshirt juniors and a redshirt sophomore.
— 2016: National champion Villanova started two seniors, two juniors and a freshman.
National runner-up North Carolina started two seniors, a junior and two sophomores.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic and the efforts to contain it, there was no NCAA Tournament in 2020.
However, the top two teams in this season’s final AP Top 25 poll broke down like this:
— No. 1 Kansas started a senior, a junior and three sophomores.
— No. 2 Gonzaga started a redshirt senior, a senior, a junior, a redshirt sophomore and a sophomore.
Since Duke won the 2015 NCAA title with three one-and-done freshmen in its starting lineup, no team that has advanced to the national title game has started more than one frosh.
Given the dynamics of how the Kentucky program operates — with players routinely turning pro with multiple years of college eligibility remaining — the move into the grad transfer market is a wise tweak by the UK brain trust to add maturity and experience to perennially youthful rosters.
If Wildcats post players Nick Richards and EJ Montgomery follow last season’s Kentucky backcourt into the NBA Draft, UK will have only one player on its 2020-21 roster who has ever started a game for the Cats.
Forward Keion Brooks started six times as a freshman in 2019-20.
Otherwise, Calipari will have redshirt freshman Dontaie Allen and a highly regarded six-player recruiting class.
No team with that little experience has ever won an NCAA title.
That’s why adding a veteran like Mintz was vital.
The ex-Creighton guard is not getting an abundance of love on the various rankings of grad transfers.
ESPN’s Jeff Borzello ranks Mintz 34th on a list of the top 50 graduate transfers for 2020-21. That is only seventh among grad transfers entering the SEC.
It is behind both graduate transfers that Chris Mack is adding to next season’s Louisville roster — ex-Radford guard Carlik Jones (No. 1 on Borzello’s list) and former San Francisco wing Charles Minlend (No. 17) — as well as departing U of L guard Darius Perry (No. 22).
Mintz is a two-and-a-half year starter for a good basketball program in the Big East. Twenty-seven of the grad transfers ranked ahead of him are exiting mid- and low-major programs.
If that many such players are better than a guard who was rock solid over multiple seasons in the Big East, there is a major flaw in how hoops prospects are being evaluated on their way into college.
For Kentucky, getting a veteran guard out of a conference that, top to bottom, is usually a better hoops league than the SEC seems an unmitigated boon.
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