Cal's Cats on the prowl with eyes on the SEC … and Indy

Andy Katz over at ESPN did a little preseason SEC blogging today, and not surprisingly, Coach Calipari and his Wildcat’s pretty much dominated the blog. For starters, UK had the top three storylines of the new season. The first being the transformation of the roster and second was the return of Patrick Patterson. Katz came out and said that Patrick’s return was bigger to UK this season than Jodie Meeks would have been. I tend to agree because Patterson will dominate in the paint this year, and while Meeks scoring will be missed, UK has more scorers on the roster to make up for it.

Katz tabs UK Freshman Eric Bledsoe as one of his 10 key players. He says that while Bledsoe could start for most teams, it would be interesting to see how he can play with John Wall. It will be interesting to see how Bledsoe can adapt to sitting when Cal goes with one lead guard and the better that Bledsoe accepts his role, the better Kentucky will be. Personally, I think that Bledsoe will have no problem with his role on the UK squad. John Wall and Eric Bledsoe are already inseparable on campus, and Wall has made some comments that indicate that he and Bledsoe will not only play well together, but thrive together:

“I am a great player, he’s a great player. Everybody thought we wouldn’t get along. But when we got here we are just two competitive people trying to make each other better for this upcoming season. We became like brothers and proved everybody wrong. We could play together in this offense. It just depends on working hard and who coach Cal starts. Hopefully we can both do well and start.”

There are a few predictions and such on the pages as well and ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb goes out on a limb and predicts that UK will win the SEC East:

1. Kentucky: It took about four weeks for John Calipari to take a Wildcats program that was reeling and put it in a position to compete for a national championship this season. This Kentucky team is loaded and it starts with Patrick Patterson, the only player in the SEC to rank among the top five in scoring and rebounding. Freshman guard John Wall is perfectly suited for the dribble-drive motion offense. And the confidence of 6-foot-6 soph Darius Miller should skyrocket after a summer with the U.S. under-19 team. Outside shooting may be UK’s Achilles’ heel, but Calipari had similar issues at Memphis and he did just fine.

Interesting as well is the fact that Gottlieb picks Florida to finish fourth in the East ahead of South Carolina. That is NIT range for the Gator’s as even in a much improved SEC, making the dance 4th in the East will depend on the NCAA picking 6 or 7 teams.

How how the mighty have fallen.

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