Who knows how different John Calipari’s run at Kentucky might have looked if a few key players had never left Lexington?
That question hangs over the end of his tenure, especially now that Mark Pope is trying to push the program back to a higher standard. And while the transfer portal has become a fact of life in college basketball, there are still a few departures that feel bigger than the rest. Three former Wildcats, in particular, could have altered the way Calipari’s Kentucky story played out.
Kyle Wiltjer is the first name that jumps out. On paper, it might sound odd to put him on this list, since he was part of Kentucky’s 2012 national title team.
But what happened after he left for Gonzaga is exactly why he belongs here. Wiltjer went on to average 16.8 points per game in 2014-15 and 20.4 in 2015-16 with the Bulldogs.
Kentucky, meanwhile, came up short of a national championship in both of those seasons. Wiltjer had averaged just 10.2 points per game in his final year at Kentucky, so the real question is whether that late-career scoring surge would have been enough to push the Wildcats’ 38-1 season all the way to the finish line.
Johnny Juzang is another one that stings in hindsight. His lone season at Kentucky in 2019-20 didn’t give Calipari much to work with, as the three-point-minded guard averaged only 2.9 points per game in a limited role.
But once he transferred to UCLA, everything changed. In 2021, Juzang carried the 11-seed Bruins to the Final Four, and his 28 points helped UCLA knock off Michigan in the Elite Eight.
Kentucky fans could only watch and wonder what might have happened if he had stayed in Lexington long enough to get more runway.
Bryce Hopkins rounds out the list. Like Juzang, he barely made a dent statistically during his time at Kentucky, averaging 2.1 points per game in 2021-22.
After leaving, though, he turned into a steady producer for the rest of his college career. Across his time at Providence and St.
John’s, Hopkins never again dipped into single-digit scoring averages. At St.
John’s, he earned All-Big East honors while averaging six rebounds and more than a steal per game. Given where Kentucky was headed in Calipari’s later years, it’s easy to picture how useful a more seasoned Hopkins might have been.
In today’s game, losing players through the transfer portal is almost as routine as watching top freshmen head to the NBA Draft. But these three came from a different era, one that felt a little more stable - and a lot more loyal.
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