Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: No Longer Unanimous Preseason Number One?

When the dust settled from the NBA early entry deadline, the Kentucky Wildcats found themselves in a very, VERY good position. Only losing Julius Randle and James Young meant we returned six potential draft picks to next years team. Combine this with the four incoming McDonald’s All-Americans, and Kentucky had a logjam of ten future NBA players on their roster. When the realization began to hit analysts and the rest of the country, people began lining up to make the Kentucky Wildcats the preseason number one for the 2014-2015 college basketball season. It looked as though they would run away with the title, easily becoming the unanimous preseason number one. Well, with the release Sporting News top 25, the unanimous label has to now be removed, as they had the Kentucky Wildcats sitting behind Arizona Wildcats at number two. Here’s what they had to say about out Wildcats.

"Likely strengths: The Wildcats have overwhelming size and depth up front, with five NBA prospects who are capable of performing at the power positions, and several of them capable of excelling. It will be up to coach John Calipari to figure out how these pieces fit best together, but there are so many impressive pieces: shot-blocking and athleticism from Willie Cauley-Stein, deep shooting from Karl Towns, a player in Trey Lyles who always finds a way to be productive. Potential weaknesses: UK was a poor perimeter defensive team last season, even as the Wildcats made their run to the NCAA championship game. It’s possible the greater maturity of the Harrison twins as sophomores will alleviate that, but it’s not automatic, and we’re not convinced it’s even likely. They have to commit to paying serious attention to that phase of the game. Key factor: Calipari must decide what he wants to do with junior Alex Poythress. Is he a small forward? There is a huge opportunity there, but Poythress has not shown he has the ability to drive the ball. Poythress is among Division I’s most dynamic players, but he seems best suited to performing as a stretch-4. It’s not as though UK is lacking for power forwards, though."

When the weakness on your team is perimeter defense, which greatly depends on the other teams ability to get hot from behind the three, you know your team is going to be good. I must say, it is this reason I disagree with their preference to put Arizona above Kentucky. Will Arizona be a good team? Undoubtedly so. Are they deserving or a top 5 ranking? Of course they are. However, Kentucky has too much talent and depth all around to not make them preseason number one. Despite this, I do agree with there assessment of the key factor being Alex Poythress. If Poythress can get back the shooting stroke he had his freshman season, then playing small forward ahead of Devin Booker will be no problem at all. This will also round out the ability to have NBA talent going two-deep at every position on the court. This, folks, is something unheard of the college basketball court. So, despite missing out on the unanimous title, these Kentucky Wildcats have a lot to look forward to. Have fun and hang on for a fun ride!