Kentucky Basketball: Wildcats suffer another setback with Aaron Bradshaw injury
Five-star incoming freshman Aaron Bradshaw is reportedly injured. Will this situation be the thing that ruins Kentucky Basketball for next season?
There’s not much that can be said about Kentucky Basketball that hasn’t been said by everyone else. Just about nothing has gone their way to this point. They lost former National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe to the NBA Draft while missing out on every transfer target this offseason.
And making things worse, the Wildcats are dealing with Antonio Reeves, the lone veteran on the roster. He came back from the draft process but reportedly is taking classes at Illinois State with the hoops of potentially leaving via the transfer portal. If that happens, it’ll literally come down to the incoming freshmen class.
The good news for Kentucky is that it’s ranked No. 1 in the entire 2023 class, thanks to several five-star prospects. One of them is Aaron Bradshaw, a consensus top-10 freshman big man, listed at 7’0 and 210 pounds. He’s a highly skilled big man with a great offensive game and with Tshiebwe gone, should be the focal point of the offense inside.
College basketball news: Kentucky’s Aaron Bradshaw – a projected top pick in 2024 NBA draft – has suffered a fracture in his foot and could miss start of the 2023-24 season, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. The program is optimistic on full recovery for the 7-foot freshman.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 16, 2023
There were reports that Bradshaw had a foot issue not too long ago and now this is confirmation. Any kind of lower-leg injury varies in the recovery process, as well as how long until he feels 100% and can trust it. There’s been talk that the timeline is more optimistic for the 2-month range but he’d still miss the preseason games.
That’s important because Bradshaw reportedly wants to play some at the four-spot, a position wide-open at the moment. There’s some concern (at least on my end) at how that’ll work for him and the fact that the program can’t even test it out before official games in November is a tough blow.
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The hope is that Bradshaw will suit up on opening night. If not, all eyes will be on sophomore center Ugonna Onyesno getting all of the minutes at the five, while five-star combo forward Justin Edwards now becoming one of the most important players in all of college basketball next season. Let’s see what the next set of updates with Bradshaw is and where Kentucky Basketball goes from here.