Posts Tagged “eric bledsoe”
Eric Bledsoe’s crazy shot
By: Guy | November 14th, 2009 | Category: CatsI was wondering last night how long it would take a ‘Cat fan to have Eric Bledsoe’s crazy shot he made during Friday’s season opener against Morehead State. I put the over/under at 24 hours…anybody who knows UK fans even a little bit would have taken the under on that.
Notes from UK’s Saturday Morning and Afternoon Practices
By: nickev | October 19th, 2009 | Category: CatsAll of the hype surrounded Friday night’s Big Blue Madness festivities. The lights, the introductions, the glitz, the all-star game caliber scrimmage and of course John Calipari’s State of the Bluegrass address.
However, if you wanted to get a first look at what this Kentucky team is really going to be like, than Saturday’s morning and afternoon practice sessions are really where you wanted to be.
The morning session was offensive oriented, involving tons of layups and jump shots. If you have the ball, you penetrate until you get stopped, when you are stopped you kick it out and they shoot. One pass, that’s it.
Calipari wants to see who can get to the rim. He wants to see who can shoot the jumper. This is why they are limiting their possessions to one pass right now. If the penetrator kicks the ball out to you, than you are expected to pull right away.
They ran 5-on-0, 3-on-2, and 2-on-1 fast breaks, all with this same philosophy. No swinging around the perimeter. If you get the ball you are shooting it.
They tracked layups missed and three-point percentage. They missed 73 layups, they shot a bunch of them, and shot 29-percent from beyond the women’s three-point line.
The afternoon session was more defensive oriented and they focused on rebounding. They have four guys crashing the glass on the offensive end and Calipari expects them to be the best rebounding team in the country.
Calipari talked a little bit about the Dribble-Drive offense and he basically said it is the Princeton offense on steroids. Only difference is that this offense relies on the dribble much more than the pass.
It resembles a four-out-one-in set and positions one through four are all interchangeable. The five roams around the paint and stays opposite of the ball at all times.
Everything is based on the penetrator getting the ball to the paint and then the rest of the offense reading the ball and their defender.
For example, if John Wall penetrates from the wing, there will be a man in the corner. That man reads the drive, if the drive is stopped, he then reads his man and chooses whether to go baseline for the backdoor or to pop out for the jumper.
The “big” stays opposite because he is there for a lob if his defender leaves him to stop penetration or he is there for the putback.
All positions are interchangeable because as soon as one man leaves his spot another is there to take his place.
One thing I took away from Saturday’s practice was their unreal length. They are long at every single position. Expect them to block a ton of shots and it is going to be very difficult for opposing teams to rebound the basketball.
John Wall and Eric Bledsoe are freaks athletically. They took turns blocking each other’s shots on the backboard. It seriously looked like a game of ping pong.
Wall and Bledsoe are the only two point guards on this team, but expect them to see the court together. Just like Coach Calipari said, if my best two players are centers I am going to find a way to get them both on the court. The same applies here.
DeMarcus Cousins could be an absolute beast but I was a little surprised at his body language. At times he mopes around and just goes through the motions. But, there is no denying that he too is unbelievably athletic.
Daniel Orton is going to be really good. He is so fluid and fundamental. They were really cautious about his knee, though, and told him if he felt any pain at all to sit out.
Darnell Dodson and Jon Hood were not too impressive. Hood may not contribute much this year but I expect him to be a player eventually. Dodson, on the other hand, should catch on.
The coaching staff is treating Patrick Patterson like he is a guard. When they split the guards and bigs into groups, he went with the guards every single time. Patterson simply beasted it by the way.
Of the other returnees, Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris both struggled. But, I was surprised with how comfortable Josh Harrellson looked. Darius Miller is going to have a lot of success with that little floater of his from 12-feet out.
One thing this team is missing is their ability to shoot the ball from the perimeter. Simply put, they struggle. They are going to need Dodson to get more comfortable in the offense and Harrellson will also be relied upon to make some outside shots.
Calipari is constantly encouraging from the sidelines and you could tell that some of the returning guys reacted to this encouragement as if they were getting yelled at. Every single time Calipari was quick to point out that he doesn’t yell, he just talks loud. He is simply there to teach them and make them better.
I’ll close with a quick story that Calipari told about Rick Pitino from back in 1996.
He mentioned how much of a nutcase, in a good way, and overpreparer that Pitino is. Before their game early in the ‘96 season, he told a radio show that he was going to play box-and-one and triangle-and-two against Kentucky.
Derek Anderson told him earlier this year that Pitino caught wind of this interview and because of that his staff looked at all of UMass’ game tapes to find the defense and prepared for it all week long.
Then UMass didn’t play it at all.
I just thought it was a interesting story and it definitely throws another log onto the Calipari-Pitino rivalry fire.
Electric Big Blue Madness introduces Commonwealth to its team
By: Guy | October 16th, 2009 | Category: Cats
Big Blue Madness is an event I’ve always wanted to attend, but it’s never quite worked out…I think I picked a good one for my first time.
For the 18,000 or so in attendance, what a spectacle. Coach John Calipari and UK Athletics recognized a couple opportunities in the way they put together the show: 1) the opportunity to set the tone for his tenure as UK coach and 2) the opportunity to make quite an impression on a good group of recruits.
I’ll get to talking about those two things in a bit, but let me get something out of the way first. Anybody who tries to draw sweeping conclusions about this team and how they will play based on a 20 minute scrimmage with a running clock is wasting their time. I’m going to keep my analysis of tonight from a basketball perspective short and sweet.
First, and most noticeably, this is a team FULL of athletes.
John Wall is flat-out ridiculous, and based on 200 YouTube videos, seeing him in person throwing down pretty much any dunk you can draw up, and in the scrimmage, I’m going to go ahead and declare John Wall to be bar none the best athlete to put on the UK jersey in my lifetime.
Explosiveness, speed, quickness, and body control, he’s got it all. He also has a confidence, demeanor, and sense of fun that has truly been missing from UK basketball for a long time. I think it goes without saying that I was really, really excited about John Wall before Madness, but seeing him live and in person really just is a little bit different. He shouldn’t be able to do what he can.
The crazy thing about this UK team is that there is not much of a drop-off in athleticism after Wall. There’s going to a drop-off in athleticism from Wall to number 2 on any team he ever plays on (unless he ends up playing with LeBron), but there are plenty of guys who are athletes in their own right. I was particularly impressed by Eric Bledsoe. Not only can the kid jump like crazy, but he’s also strong. He’s going to challenge Wall all season long. Guys like DeAndre Liggins (who seems reenergized), Jon Hood, Darius Miller, Darnell Dodson, and even Ramon Harris can run and jump too.
The scrimmage, though, was unorganized chaos, to no surprise, so much so that John Calipari stopped things with 5 minutes left, grabbed a microphone and said something to the effect of “Now you guys see that we have a long way to go”. There is work to do, obviously, but like Coach Cal said, I’ll take talent over experience every time.
Outside of seeing John Wall for the first time and hearing the ovation given to Patrick Patterson when he was introduced, without a doubt the thing I will remember most about Big Blue Madness is the speech that John Calipari delivered to begin the festivities.
I noticed as soon as they had the stage set up after the UK women’s team finished up a podium. I turned to my dad when I saw it and said “Is Coach Cal giving a State of the Union address?” It turns out that that’s almost exactly what he did.
Calipari has instilled a sense of excitement around the UK program over the last 6 months, but that speech was all about shaping that excitement into a vision. Calipari’s vision is possibly even more audacious than that of most UK fans (take a look at this link to read the transcript of the speech). He wants to not only become the gold standard of college basketball, but also the gold standard in all of college sports.
UK fans want desperately to share in the direction of the program and John Calipari embraces that. In recent years, the expectations of UK fans have been painted as a negative aspect of the UK job. I find it so impressive that John Calipari not only accepts the expectations, but looks at them as a positive, saying that it is a privilege to play with those expectations, that they are a call to greatness. I can’t say how good that is to hear.
As much as John Calipari said the night was all about the fans, that’s really not entirely true. This night was as much about the recruits in attendance as it was about you or me. I imagine that the event made quite an impression, bordering on overwhelming for the kids. Having Drake in attendance sporting a UK jacket can’t have hurt either.
The group of recruits that attended Big Blue Madness had a decidedly New York/New Jersey feel, and accordingly, NYC native Orlando Antigua was with the group every step of the way. I did cross paths with the group on the way out and they were clearly enjoying the attention and the whole scene. I’m sure we’ll hear more in the coming days about the visits.
I’m realizing right now that this post has devolved into me just throwing my thoughts out, and clearly, my mind is racing thinking about everything I took in tonight. It was a lot of fun, and it truly felt like the start of something special, something fun.
UK’s point guard prospects: No shortage of targets, no shortage of drama
By: Guy | September 30th, 2009 | Category: CatsJohn Calipari set the tone pretty quickly that the point guard position would be a focus of his recruiting strategy at Kentucky. UK fans spent the entire 2008-2009 season pining for A point guard, any point guard, to step into the position and succeed. When the season closed, attention shifted bringing in a newcomer who could fill the position.
John Calipari’s arrival convinced most UK fans that the ‘Cats would land one of the top remaining uncommitted point guards in the 2009 class, so basically John Wall or Eric Bledsoe. Calipari would have none of that. He got both.
The signing of both Wall and Bledsoe proved two things to me about point guard recruiting under Calipari: 1) pretty much any point guard that John Calipari wants to be interested in UK, will be interested in UK and 2) Calipari is probably going to sign a bunch of top players at the position, but it is not going to be without some serious drama to go along with it.
During the months of April and May, how much time did you spend thinking about and seeking out information about Wall and Bledsoe? I couldn’t post two articles here on the Pinkie without mentioning one of their names, because that’s all I was thinking about.
The three week period that culminated in Wall’s commitment was absolutely ridiculous. One day we heard he had softly committed to Miami. The next we heard he was thinking about the NBA. The next we heard that UNC was getting involved.
I’m sorry for bringing up that stressful time, but folks, I have some news for you: that kind of drama is going to be the rule going forward, not the exception. These are the days of later and later decisions and those decisions are only going to be delayed longer due to upcoming rule changes that will force college underclassmen to make earlier decisions about their draft status. With these rules, the spring signing period will end about 2 weeks after the deadline to withdraw from the Draft.
Top 2010 point guards Brandon Knight and Josh Selby are perfect examples. What reason does a potential one and done player like Knight or Selby have to make a decision in November when they can wait until May to see exactly who will be staying in school and who will head for the Draft? Why risk signing with Kentucky in November and getting stuck behind John Wall if something strange happens and he stays another season?
UK is a major player for both Knight and Selby, but don’t fool yourself…their decisions will stretch out into spring. Some feel that UK leads for Knight and/or Selby, but I see no way that we will avoid waiting until March, April, or May for a commitment from either.
There will obviously be a lot of intrigue around the drawn decisions of the two top ranked point guard in the class of 2010, but ironically the decisions of two point guards who intend to make a college decision much, much earlier could be surrounded by even more drama.
Kyrie Irving has been long assumed to be headed for Duke or Indiana. Then, Irving, out of nowhere, dropped IU. This past weekend, Irving had a visit to Duke on which he saw basically everything he wanted to, loving every minute. Word circulated on Sunday afternoon after the visit that a commitment was forthcoming with in the next day.
However, it’s late Wednesday night, and the Dookies are still waiting, but less and less patiently every day. I’m not sure what to make of that, but I do know that Coach K has had some high profile misses on the trail in recent years, many times attributed to a failure to close.
I’m guessing that the patience of Duke fans is frayed even more by this excerpt from an Indianapolis Star recruiting update on Kyrie:
“It’s been rumored for a while Irving’s dad is pushing to get him to Kentucky where Kyrie’s godfather, Rod Strickland, is an assistant.”
Kyrie has been quick to say at every juncture that his decision would not be impacted by his family’s relationship Rod Strickland. However, this would suggest that his family may feel otherwise.
It appears that, at the very least, the relationship with Strickland will cause him to make his official visit to UK for Big Blue Madness as planned, even though he may be a heavy Duke lean. With the craziness that will be Big Blue Madness, anything can happen.
Marquis Teague is a rising junior who has targeted a decision before the beginning of this season all along. UofL has looked to be very strong for Teague all along, particularly with the planned early decision. The common thought has been that the longer he stretches a decision out, the worse it looks for UofL, the perceived favorite.
Today, we learned that the plan to make an early fall decision was out the window for Teague. Teague wants to be able to see how the teams on his list (UofL, UK, Indiana, Purdue, Cincinnati, Wake Forest, and Ohio State with UNC potentially getting involved) play over the course of the season.
Teague is clearly concerned that he could make a decision he regrets, so he needs to gather more information to make a sound decision. All I know is that, as a UK fan, I really like the idea of having Teague watch UK play with Wall and Bledsoe all season on TV all the time. If things go as planned, it’s hard to imagine any top point guard not being at least intrigued by the possibilities.
Oh, and Marquis Teague will visit UK for Big Blue Madness.
In case you haven’t seen this from UK Photo Day
By: Guy | September 3rd, 2009 | Category: Cats
This photo from The Cat’s Pause has been everywhere I’ve looked this morning, but in case you haven’t seen it, I needed to make sure you did.
It’s nice to see these guys in UK uniforms.
Three way match between UK, UofL, and IU shaping up for Marquis Teague
By: Guy | August 25th, 2009 | Category: Cats
Do you remember those Triple Threat matches they used to have in the WWF when you used to watch it back in middle school (or last week)? It seemed like every one of those matches would end with one guy screwing another one and allowing the third guy to win, which would inevitably lead to a heel turn.
With the way things have come together in the recruitment of top 2011 point guard Marquis Teague, it looks like we may just have a little Triple Threat match brewing between John Calipari of UK, Rick Pitino of UofL, and Tom Crean of IU. The question becomes, when does Crean break out the proverbial steel chair and crack supposed friend John Calipari over the head?
Teague is ranked in the top 10 of any ranking of the 2011 that matters and is believed by man to be the top point guard prospect in the class. You likely know his brother, Jeff, who was recently picked in the first round of the NBA Draft after a short career at Wake Forest. Jeff flew a little under the radar coming out of college, Marquis, on the other hand, is not. He plays an exceptionally smart game and runs the point to near perfection.
You may be wondering why Teague is such a hot topic since he is only a junior, but Teague seems to be wanting to commit sooner rather than later. Many believed he would have made a commitment by this time. It’s lucky, though, for Calipari and UK that he didn’t, because they have shown interest but had not yet offered. UK now has offered, and soon after, Teague scheduled a visit this past weekend at UK, which went well according to all accounts.
UofL is all in with Teague. Pitino and company thought they may have a commitment by now, but they still see him as a cornerstone of their 2011 class. Needless to say, UofL fans cannot be excited that it has dragged on this long, and they have to be even less excited about UK’s involvement.
IU is another school that will receive strong consideration, especially given that he’s from Indianapolis, but that picture of a three way battle I painted is not entirely accurate. Wake Forest, Ohio State, and Purdue are also in the mix. Teague is looking to make a decision before his junior year gets underway, so we could know something by November. Teague has also coyly said he has a leader, but that his father does not yet want him to reveal it.
Here are some other pieces of UK related news/rumors floating around:
-The football news today that caught everyone’s attention was Rich Brooks revelation that “it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that both (freshman quarterbacks Morgan Newton and Ryan Mossakowski) could redshirt” due to Will Fidler’s strong play and the difficult adjustment period of both Newton and Mossakowski.
HT to John Clay for the YouTube
I had pretty much expected that Mossakowski would redshirt this season, but in the back of my mind I always believed Newton would take the backup job and even see the field in a change of pace capacity. We’ll see how this pans out in the coming weeks. Brooks doesn’t need to make a decision soon, so it could stretch out for a while.
-Top 2010 target Brandon Knight will not be at UK’s Big Blue Madness this year, which comes as a disappointment. Even more disappointing is that he will instead visit Kansas for Late Night in the Phog. I still feel good about UK’s chances here, but Bill Self is good at what he does.
-One top 2010 recruit that has escaped mention here on the Pinkie is Enes Kanter. Kanter is a 6-10 Turkish forward who last week decided to forgo the opportunity to earn millions playing in Europe right now to attend DeAndre Liggins former school, Findlay Prep, and eventually play college ball here in the States.
Kanter is widely regarded as one of the top European prospects around and instantly becomes a top 20 (and likely even higher) talent in this year’s class. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is all over him, and he will have quite a task in even beginning to trim a list of schools that includes every major program. He will play one year of high school before moving on to college, and could make a decision as early as this fall.
It’s really a complete guessing game at this point as to which schools he will consider, but when he does move forward, things are going to happen quickly. Keep an eye out for news soon.
Here’s a video of Kanter that I found of his performance in the FIBA Europe U-18 Tournament. He won MVP honors with double-double performance after double-double performance.
-Finally, I bring to you a fun link to blog post by Jeff Goodman. Goodman interviewed DeMarcus Cousins’ high school coach, Otis Hughley, and discussed UK freshman point guard Eric Bledsoe at length. Hughley (who may have fallen into the trap of exagerration a bit) said Bledsoe “may be better” than John Wall.
We all know Bledsoe is awesome and has been consistently impressive all summer, perhaps giving John Wall more competition in pickup games than he’ll see in almost any game this season. However, John Wall is John Wall, and it’s hard to imagine him being upstaged by anyone. Even so, both may be point guards, but everyone expects the two to play and play well together:
Bledsoe, an Alabama native, single-handedly knocked off LeFlore in the state semifinals.
“He beat us by himself,” Hughley said. “John (Wall) couldn’t have done what that boy did.”
“He killed us,” Cousins added. “Destroyed us. He was a one-man show.”
Trust me, it’s not that Hughley isn’t a Wall fan. In fact, Hughley feels as though Wall and Bledsoe could quickly become the top backcourt in America.
As if we needed another reason to get excited about basketball season.
“That’s what they’re going to do,” Hughley said. “They’re going to play together.”
Let’s have some football fun with the UK basketball team
By: Guy | August 12th, 2009 | Category: CatsRightfully so, today has been all about the Rick Pitino-Karen Sypher story. However, I’ve seen some people taking pleasure in a really, really bad situation, which is very difficult for me to understand. I decided I wanted to have some silly, pointless fun with UK basketball. We’ve got plenty to be excited about right now as ‘Cats fans. I see no need to be negative about the troubles in the ‘Ville.
One of my strongest beliefs in the world of sports is that the best athletes in the world play basketball. Football has some phenomenal athletes at the skill positions, soccer could make an argument, and baseball has a stray Carl Crawford or Grady Sizemore running around, but when it comes down to it, I’ll take the average basketball player over the average player in any other sport.
As an example, one of the things in sports that I would like to see most is a season of LeBron James playing wide receiver in the NFL. If there were some sort of fund that would go toward paying a year’s salary for LeBron, I would be all over that. His combination of size, speed, strength, and explosiveness would be absolutely unstoppable.
With that in mind, and in honor of the upcoming football season and the current series of positional previews the Pinkie is unveiling, I started applying LeBron principle to UK’s current basketball roster. With John Calipari at the helm, UK is going to have rosters with near NBA level athleticism. His first roster is already showing that even though only half of it is made up by players recruited by him.
Really the only spots on the field that basketball players are unable to fill are the line positions, so what I’m going to do is fill 6 offensive positions (QB, RB, FB, 2 WR’s, TE) and 6 defensive positions (FS, SS, 2 CB’s, 2 LB’s) with the same group of players. There are some fits that aren’t ideal, but the point is that this is fun to think about.
Offense
Just as in our positional previews, it all starts at quarterback. This is probably the most difficult position to project, because to correctly do so, I would need an idea of arm strength and accuracy. I thought about going with Daniel Orton, because of how I’ve seen him launch full court outlet passes, but instead I’m going to pick John Wall to play QB.
Wall is the kind of athlete who could probably play any of the skill positions, but when I think about his court awareness, speed, and agility, I think he would make a pretty good QB. I’ve seen countless highlights where he finds an open man that didn’t even realize he was open. He would pick holes in defenses, and when he couldn’t, he would probably just scramble for a first down.
At running back, I’m going to have to go with Eric Bledsoe, who at 6 feet tall and just over 200 pounds, is closest to the prototypical size for a back. He’s got the kind of strength, speed, quickness, and shiftiness that would make him very difficult to bring down. Besides, his point guard skills would allow him to see the field well and find spaces underneath to give John Wall a great checkdown target.
The biggest no brainer for me in putting this imaginary team together is Patrick Patterson at tight end. All last football season, as I watched UK struggle at tight end after Jacob Tamme’s departure, the idea of having Patterson kept going through my head.
How many times have you seen Patterson get pounded by double and triple teams and still manage to dig out space? How many times have you seen a UK player lob in a half hearted entry pass and see Patterson somehow come up with the ball? Patterson has the strength, size, and hands to make a tremendous Antonio Gates type tight end.
At wide receiver, I’m going to have to go with DeAndre Liggins and Darius Miller. With their size, they would create mismatches all over the place for smaller corners. They make take a few nasty hits with their length, but I think they would have the agility to run precise routes and the leaping ability to make the difficult catch.
At fullback, I say the best fit is Daniel Orton. He may be about a foot taller than the typical fullback, but he has the power to blow some people up.
Defense
The captain on the defensive side of the ball is Patrick Patterson at linebacker. His intensity and power would give the basketball version of the Whomp Squad ideal leadership. The other linebacker would be big Daniel Orton. The two players would give the ‘Cats the tallest linebacking corps in the history of football, and the summer they spent together with Hell’s Trainer Frank Matriscano gave them the strength and stamina to man the trenches for 60 minutes.
At the two corner positions, I’m going with John Wall and DeAndre Liggins. Wall would bring the kind of athleticism and ball skills that every NFL scout looks for in a DB, plus his height would allow him match up with any big wide receiver. DeAndre Liggins isn’t exactly what I would draw up when I think of a corner, but I don’t think his competitive streak would allow him to back down from anyone.
At free safety, I’m going with the wily Darius Miller. I think Darius would be an absolute ball hawk and he might fool some players into thinking he was soft with his wiry build. He would play a great center field and make the big pick.
At strong safety, the choice is clearly Eric Bledsoe. I’ve seen Bledsoe compared multiple times to a safety because of his strength and tenacity, and I think he would deliver a pretty nasty lick or two to a receiver venturing in the middle of the field.
OK, I enjoyed that. Why don’t you guys join in? Post in the comments if you think I put anybody at the wrong spot, if I left anybody out. Also, which football players do you think would make the best basketball players?
2010 recruiting moving along, what will UK’s haul look like?
By: Guy | August 5th, 2009 | Category: CatsJohn Calipari, in nailing down the consensus top class for 2009, set expectations just a bit high for future recruiting efforts. It’s not that often that a coach will put together a class with two of the top point guards in the county, two of the top big men in the country, and two more highly regarded wing players. It’s even less often (and by less often I mean never) that a coach does it in a matter of months at a school. However, that’s just what Coach Cal pulled off.
Even though the bar is high, I don’t think Calipari minds too much. He may not have the top class every year, but from this point forward, UK is going to be in the mix with almost every big name and the ‘Cats will be among the top classes in the country. There are going to be plenty of rides going to go around with UK players thinking NBA sooner rather than later.
Next year specifically, UK figures to have 4 open scholarships at a minimum. Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris will graduate and Patrick Patterson and John Wall will almost assuredly be first round picks as early entrants. Additionally, UK has only 12 scholarship players as of right now and while Mark Krebs could get a scholarship for next year, there are no guarantees whether he gets the ride beyond then. DeMarcus Cousins is also a possibility to leave for the NBA.
So, assuming those four players depart and UK has four scholarships to fill, let’s look by position at how Coach Cal’s second class at UK might look.
Point Guard
Even with the likely departure of John Wall, it’s not like UK will be in bad hands with Eric Bledsoe at the helm, especially after a solid year of playing time. Don’t expect John Calipari to be content with that though.
The Suspects – In order of UK’s chances in my estimation
1. Brandon Knight
2. Josh Selby
3. Joe Jackson
4. Kyrie Irving
The Prognosis
There is some thought that Coach Cal could duplicate his 2009 feat and nab two top point guards. I don’t really think this is likely.
There has been a lot of conversation lately about UK being in solid shape for both Knight and Selby. Knight’s mother was in Lexington early this week to meet with the staff and President Lee Todd. Not many details of the visit have emerged, but things have been positive. The Selby saga is well known by this point and UK’s strong standing with him is also well known.
The good thing about both of these prospects is that I believe they would play very well alongside Bledsoe. Neither are true point guards, but Bledsoe definitely is.
Ultimately, I think this could come down to a race between Selby and Knight to commit to UK and I think Knight will win.
I put Jackson third on this list because I don’t think he is a top priority for the staff and I put Kyrie Irving third because I just don’t think UK is that strong with him. I say he ends up at IU.
Wing Players
Even though UK won’t lose much after 2009 in the way of wing players, getting a high level wing scorer is a top priority for the staff in the coming months. Many thought Will Barton would fit the bill, but his commitment to Memphis derailed that thought for now. Perimeter shooting is the number one weakness for this year’s team and Calipari will want to solidify that area.
The Suspects
1. Doron Lamb
2. Jelan Kendrick
3. Casey Prather
4. Cameron Clark
5. Harrison Barnes
The Prognosis
On this list, Lamb and Barnes are the two that best fit the perimeter scorer mold. It’s never a good idea to count out Coach Cal, but I just don’t see Barnes ending up at UK. I do think that UK is the team to beat for Doron Lamb.
I also believe that UK could very well end up with one of the Kendrick, Clark, and Prather group. Each of them has small forward size with some point guard skills, which is a perfect fit for the dribble drive. I really do not have much of a grasp on the stories on each, but I have Kendrick at two on this list because I like what I have heard about him the best of the three.
Post Players
Like at point guard, UK will lose a major contributor next year in Patrick Patterson. However, if Cousins and Orton return, UK is in good shape in the post. Cousins and Orton are both more traditional 5 men, so I expect John Calipari to heavily target more dribble drive type 4 men.
The Suspects
1. Adreian Payne
1a. CJ Leslie
1b. Tobias Harris
4. Dominique Ferguson
The Prognosis
Payne and Leslie are both long and athletic and can run the floor and I think Calipari likes them both a lot. Payne has been talked about quite a bit lately after narrowing his list. Many say that it will come down to UK and West Virginia. CJ Leslie will no doubt be watching a lot of UK this year on TV, as his former teammate John Wall takes college basketball by storm.
Tobias Harris was just on campus today, but UK has been a bit of late comer to his recruitment. It will be interesting to see if UK makes his next list cut and gets an official visit from Harris, who has exploded this summer. On the other hand, former UK commit Dominique Ferguson has struggled a bit this summer and I don’t see the staff going hard after him.
Basically what I’m telling you is that there is a lot to be sorted out. In the end though, I think Calipari would like to get two commits from this group.
Wrapping up a random busy news day
By: Guy | July 27th, 2009 | Category: CatsYou have to love the John Calipari era. UK news breaks in the offseason no matter what, but it sure seems like it’s been happening more often since John Calipari came to Lexington. You wouldn’t think much would be going on July 27, but that was not the case today, because there was plenty to talk about.
-First and foremost among today’s happenings was the viral debut of the YouTube video of a pickup game in Lexington during UK basketball camp. In it, John Wall and Eric Bledsoe looked great, playing very well together. The reports are out there that the two are getting along very well, which is great news.
DeMarcus Cousins also looked solid in the video, although he was guarded by Perry Stevenson, a guy who he outweighs by probably 50 pounds. However, Cousins ball skills were the most impressive. part of his game.
Neither Stevenson nor Harris looked very good at all and Darius Miller was quiet but solid.
Joe Crawford also reminded us how good he really is, as he torched Eric Bledsoe for much of the first 4-5 minutes of the video.
-The other news (well, not really news) was the emergence of Larry Vaught’s report of a source indicating that commitments from five star rising seniors Brandon Knight and Adreian Payne were forthcoming. The report first appeared on the Kentucky Sports Report Premium message board before being grabbed by basically everyone.
I’m not going to be holding my breath, but UK is definitely strong with both players. The speculation about Knight, in particular, is interesting to me. Knight has just seen a fellow top ranked player in his class who plays a very similar game to him get a bunch of attention for decommitting from Tennessee. The player I’m referring to, of course, is Josh Selby and you can hardly read an article about him without seeing UK or John Calipari. Knight may be motivated slightly to commit to UK if he indeed favors the ‘Cats knowing that Selby is out there.
-The final piece of basketball news of the day was Matt Jones post saying that UK had finalized its basketball schedule at long last and would announce the schedule in a made for TV special on the Big Blue Sports Network.
Calipari has been said to be pursuing a marquee opponent for the last open spot on the schedule (Andy Katz mentions neutral site games against Kansas and Duke). That has been the delay in the announcement and apparently Calipari has now either landed that game or decided to move on and settle for a smaller name.
-Believe it or not, there was some football news that grabbed a headline or two today as well. UK has scheduled a four year series with Western Kentucky. Two of the games will be played in Lexington and two of the games will be played in the Tennessee Titans home, LP Field in Nashville, as home games for recently promoted to Division I Hilltoppers.
Games in Nashville bring back fond memories for me of UK’s two recent Music City Bowl wins over Clemson and Florida State. I’m sure UK fans will make the trek and it should be a good time.
Footage from a Kentucky scrimmage
By: Guy | July 27th, 2009 | Category: Cats - VideosI came across this YouTube video of a summer pickup game. In addition to watching the ridiculous athleticism of John Wall, the quickness of Eric Bledsoe, and the size and ball skill of DeMarcus Cousins (FF to the 4:15 mark), you’ll see the familiar jumper of Joe Crawford.
Check it out and post your favorite part in the comments section below:
