Top-10 transfer Keshad Johnson chooses Arizona, leaving Kentucky in need of talent

And the winners of the Keshad Johnson sweepstakes are … the Wildcats. The losers of the Keshad Johnson sweepstakes? Also the Wildcats.

The Arizona Wildcats won and the Kentucky Wildcats lost Saturday when Johnson, a 6-foot-7 forward who started 71 consecutive games for NCAA runner-up San Diego State, committed to Tommy Lloyd over John Calipari barely a week after both coaches hosted the coveted transfer for official visits. The Athletic rated Johnson the 10th-best available prospect in the portal.

So what is Arizona getting and Kentucky still missing?

“First of all, an elite defender,” said San Diego State assistant Dave Velasquez, who is essentially the defensive coordinator for an Aztecs team that ranked No. 2 nationally in 2022 and No. 4 in 2023 in points per possession allowed. “He can guard every single position on the floor, is a really good defensive rebounder and he’s capable of a lot offensively but really understands who he is — someone who shoots an incredible percentage from 15 feet and in — and gets others involved. His ability to work around other really good players is why we were able to go to the national championship game. He’s that glue guy you need: not really bad at anything and solid to very good at everything.”

Johnson’s numbers don’t exactly pop: 7.7 points and 5.0 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game last season for a 10-deep San Diego State team. He’s also just a 25 percent 3-point shooter in his 113-game college career. This is not nearly as flashy an addition as former McDonald’s All-American point guard Jaden Bradley, who Arizona recently landed from Alabama. Johnson probably won’t be the first, second or even third option for a team that returns All-Pac-12 center Oumar Ballo and former Pac-12 sixth man of the year Pelle Larsson. But attempting to measure Johnson’s impact by stats alone would be a mistake, his former coach believes.

“He’s a worker. He’s an everyday guy. He’s someone you can rely on,” Velasquez said. “He’s the ultimate winner, the ultimate teammate, everything you’d ever want in a player as a coach in terms of leadership. He’s the definition of a leader: vocal, sets an example, has the ability to calm guys down in the most stressful moments and get guys to rise up in the moments when they need a kick in the rear end. He’s just a total leader, and not just games. He led us in practices and film sessions, by having a great attitude traveling through the Mountain West, which isn’t easy, bringing an energy that is infectious when you’re stuck in airports and riding the bus. Every coach in the world is looking for a guy like him.”

Johnson has eight games of NCAA Tournament experience and was an integral part of the Aztecs’ stunning run to the title game this year. He had eight points, six boards, a block and a steal in the Sweet 16 upset of No. 1 seed Alabama, when All-American star Brandon Miller went scoreless when guarded by Johnson. He scored or assisted on eight points (and came up with several key rebounds) in a seven-minute stretch when San Diego State erased a seven-point deficit late in the Elite Eight win over Creighton. He had 14 points and four boards in the national championship game against Connecticut.

So when it is suggested that perhaps talking about Johnson is a sore subject, given his decision to transfer, Velasquez interrupts.

“No, no, he left a legend,” the coach said. “He gave us four years, got his degree, was the first in his family to do it. We were all at his graduation (last) Saturday. He’s all good in our book. Now is the time you tell him to take advantage of his opportunities. Now is the time for them to be selfish, go get whatever they can get. We kept up our side of the bargain and so did he, so it’s a mutual love.”

That sounds like exactly the kind of respected veteran locker room presence a freshman-heavy Kentucky team badly needed to add. Instead, Johnson choosing Arizona is just the latest offseason letdown for Calipari and his staff, who also lost 7-foot Michigan transfer Hunter Dickinson to Kansas. Roster depth and experience become more worrisome by the day.

Kentucky has lost six players from last season’s team — Cason Wallace and Jacob Toppin to early NBA draft entry and Sahvir Wheeler, CJ Fredrick, Daimion Collins and Lance Ware to the transfer portal — but also has Antonio Reeves, Chris Livingston and Oscar Tshiebwe going through the pre-draft process with an option to return. Livingston is all but gone (Johnson would’ve been the ideal replacement) and Tshiebwe seems to be leaning toward staying in the draft, too, after a strong showing in workouts and at the annual scouting combine this week.

Reeves is the best bet to return, but the fact he still hasn’t publicly announced that means there are still just seven scholarship players committed to Kentucky’s roster for next season. Five of them are freshmen, plus two sophomores. Not one junior or senior to be found at this point. Even with the No. 1 recruiting class in the country incoming, leaning this heavily into young talent seems a bad bet to make in the current college basketball climate.

There was not a single true freshman starter at the Final Four this year — 16 of 20 starters were juniors or seniors — and not one McDonald’s All-American on any of those rosters, either. In the last two Final Fours, only Duke in 2022 had any true freshmen starting. College basketball is a grown man’s game right now, and Calipari is getting precariously close to entering a make-or-break season with a bunch of 18- and 19-year-olds leading the way.

In the name, image and likeness, and transfer portal era, where essentially every player in America is available at the right price, it seems baffling that Calipari and Kentucky could ever find themselves scrambling to fill out a roster. The only transfer the Wildcats have landed in the last two offseasons is Reeves from Illinois State. Meanwhile, several fellow SEC programs have remade their rosters with multiple quality portal additions this spring. From The Athletic’s ranking of the 90 best transfer fits so far, 20 of those players are SEC-bound: three each to Arkansas, LSU and Tennessee, two apiece to Alabama, Florida and Ole Miss. None to Kentucky.

On Saturday, the Arizona Wildcats landed the kind of veteran role player his former coach says “can do a little bit of everything a team needs,” while the Kentucky Wildcats remained stuck in an unsettling position: a team that needs a little bit of everything.

(Photo: Rob Carr / Getty Images)