This UK basketball team will feature lots of veterans. With a freshman to lead them.

If there’s any shyness in TyTy Washington — the latest five-star point guard that John Calipari has recruited to Kentucky — he didn’t show much sign of it Thursday afternoon.

“What’s up, everybody!” Washington said in greeting the reporters who assembled at Forks of Elkhorn Baptist Church — the latest stop on the UK basketball camp tour that has been criss-crossing the commonwealth — starting off his first interview as a Wildcat with a big smile that never really left his face.

The 19-year-old was a late commitment to Kentucky’s team for this coming season. He signed with the program just last month, arrived in Lexington only a couple of weeks ago, and he’s spent his time since bonding with his new teammates and getting an up-close look at what UK basketball means around the state.

Washington — a 6-foot-3 playmaker with a 6-9 wingspan — is yet another star point guard prospect in the Calipari era, coming to town with similar hype from the recruiting services and the same one-and-done expectations of the many who preceded him.

This UK experience, however, will be a lot different for Washington than it has been for most of Calipari’s previous point guard phenoms.

In the past, Kentucky’s next-big-thing freshman point guard has largely been asked to lead other freshmen. Maybe a sophomore or two. This year, Washington walks into a situation stacked with experience.

Davidson transfer Kellan Grady — a 6-foot-5 shooting guard with some point guard attributes — was a 2,000-point scorer with his former team and will be entering his fifth season of college.

Georgia transfer Sahvir Wheeler — a 5-10 point guard — is going into his third year of college ball. He led the Southeastern Conference in assists per game this past season and didn’t come to Lexington to ride the pine.

Iowa transfer CJ Fredrick — a 6-3 shooting guard — started 52 games over the past two seasons for two good Hawkeyes teams, and he’s entering his fourth year of college.

Dontaie Allen — a 6-6 shooting guard and the only Kentucky holdover, so far, from last season’s backcourt — is going into year three of college and provided the Cats with some of their biggest moments in the 2020-21 campaign.

If Davion Mintz returns to UK for one more season — and there’s still a chance that happens — the 6-3 combo guard would be in his sixth year of college, playing his fifth season at the high-major level. Mintz, the leading scorer for the Cats this past season, turns 23 years old in a couple of weeks and has 99 collegiate starts under his belt.

Add all that up, and it’s 16 years of experience on a college campus, 13 seasons of playing Division I basketball against top-flight competition.

Washington, of course, has none of that. He’s still more than four months away from his first college game.

He’ll also be expected to produce immediately. And, perhaps a taller task, he’ll be expected to lead immediately.

Freshman among veterans

Washington acknowledges that every other guard around him will have much more college seasoning. He just kept on smiling Thursday as he talked about how he was going to approach that fact on the court.

“I feel like my role on this team is definitely going to be to lead,” he said. “Every day in practice, the coaches stress to me to make sure I’m talking, make sure I’m being the same person I was in high school. So they’re just pretty much saying — with me being the point guard — everybody on the team is going to listen to what I have to say. So just speak up.”

That wasn’t a problem this past season, when Washington led his Arizona Compass Prep squad to a 27-1 regular-season record and an unexpected spot in the year-end national high school championship tournament on ESPN. MaxPreps.com named him a First Team All-American. 247Sports analyst Travis Branham said he was probably the “breakout player” of the year nationally.

He ended up as the No. 12 recruit nationally in the 247Sports composite rankings.

“The kid is very talented. He’s a gifted scorer, a gifted playmaker,” Branham told the Herald-Leader. “He has very good size for the position. He’s long and he’s athletic. He’s tough. I think that’s one of the key separators of him among his peers. Not only does he have the talent — he’s just really tough. He plays with grit. He loves to compete. He can really shoot it. He can score from all three levels.

“And I think that’s going to play into his hands when it comes to him becoming a (college) playmaker.”

By this point, there isn’t anyone really questioning Washington’s game.

The bigger question — especially after UK’s struggles at the point guard spot last season — is whether or not he can lead a team with Final Four aspirations.

To those who have been around him on his basketball journey so far, that’s not really a question either.

Arizona Compass Prep program director Pete Kaffey, who has worked with several five-star recruits in his career, said Washington was able to take a team with lots of talented pieces and turn them into the national title contender they became this past season.

“Always a team-first kid,” Kaffey told the Herald-Leader. “A lead-by-example type of guy. First one at practice. Never miss practice. Just a tremendous leader.”

That’s the mentality he’s bringing to Lexington. He knows he’s the new guy, when it comes to the college game. He knows respect will have to be earned, especially from the older guys he’ll play alongside in the backcourt.

There was no sign of any kind of early rivalry — or even a competition for playing time — with Wheeler, the only other point guard on the team. Washington said the two playmakers clicked immediately, and added that they’ve been hanging out a bunch off the court. He talked about how their games complement each other, how Calipari wants to go back to the three-guard lineup he’s had success with in the past, and how the two point guards can play together and wreak havoc on opposing defenses.

Washington said the early workouts the UK team has been able to participate in the past few days have been more of a feeling-out process, both for the players and for Calipari. The freshman said he hasn’t been surprised by much. He did film study on every one of his teammates before he committed to the Cats, yet another sign of his preparation, as a player and as a leader.

Eventually, a reporter pointed out Washington’s smile, asked him if that attitude carried over to the court, and, if it did, if that helped him his as a player. Sounds like it helps him as a leader.

“Yeah, I mean, I just feel like if you go out there and be happy all the time, a lot of good things can happen for you,” the freshman said. “If you’re always being sad or mad during a basketball game — or you’re dwelling on a missed shot — then that can carry with you for the rest of the game and affect everybody else on the team. So I just try to keep a good attitude. Make sure my attitude’s good. And if my attitude’s good, then my teammates’ attitude is great.”

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