Kentucky Basketball: What's Next for Wildcats Following Andrew Wiggins' Decision

After a long and drawn-out recruiting saga, superstar prospect Andrew Wiggins elected to sign with Kansas, spurning the Kentucky Wildcats in the process.  

Grant Taylor of the Huntington Herald-Dispatch reported the coveted 5-star prospect's decision:

Wiggins would have put the finishing touch on arguably the best recruiting class in college basketball history. Considering head coach John Calipari already has signatures from five of the consensus top 10 players in this class, according to 247Sports, landing Wiggins would have been the icing on the cake.

The Wildcats certainly didn’t miss out on Wiggins for a lack of effort, though, as Calipari turned out to be the only coach of Wiggins' final four schools with whom the Canadian native didn’t cancel his in-home visit.

Citing exhaustion from the All-Star circuit, the small forward instead spoke with coach Roy Williams of UNC, Bill Self of Kansas and Leonard Hamilton of Florida State via telephone.

Regardless of its strong effort, Kentucky simply didn’t get the letter of intent it desired from Wiggins, and now it’s left to pick up the pieces. Fortunately, this should still be one of the best teams in the nation for the upcoming 2013-14 campaign.

That may even be Wiggins’ biggest reason for not choosing the Wildcats, as there is a real possibility he had no desire to share the spotlight on a team that signed Julius Randle (No. 2 overall), Andrew (No. 4) and Aaron Harrison (No. 6), James Young (No. 9) and Dakari Johnson (No.10), per 247Sports' composite rankings.

Factor in that a number of the stars from the disappointing 2012-13 UK squad are returning for another season—including Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress—and the potential logjam at the swingman spot, and it’s reasonable to see why Wiggins decided to take his talents elsewhere.

If anyone could handle the problem of having too many great players at one position, it certainly is coach Cal, but Wiggins simply didn’t give him an opportunity.

However, he may ultimately wish he had when Big Blue is dominating the competition next season, sitting at the top of the polls and heading into the NCAA tournament as a favorite to win it all next year.

This Kentucky team will be just fine without Wiggins, as the sheer number of stars that stayed for another year and joined on as freshmen recruits assures a successful season for Calipari's Wildcats.