Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: Sink or Swim With Six

For most Kentucky Wildcat fans the number eight is strong in their minds, but right now the number in fans minds is can six get us eight? Can a six man rotation bring home our eighth national championship? These are questions I wonder about as well.

Earlier this week Eric Crawford wrote an article discussing how Coach Cal plans to stick with his six guys no matter what, sink or swim. In recent years if you was to use a six man rotation you had several veteran players but Cal has put his trust in three freshmen, two juniors (one of which he tried to get off the team last season) and a senior. I have several problems with using so little amount of guys some being no room for a bad night from a guy, wearing down in games, no room for injury, and no allowance for foul trouble.

On top of that you have guys who are working their ass off in practice for them to hear that their coach doesn’t trust them, not even with a lead. We have saw Cal stick with his core six with huge leads in games and you play them so much they end up blowing big leads because they are too tired to compete. While you have players like Jon Hood who have been waiting for their shot to get into the game and show the skills they have learned in practice to be denied the chance. In my opinion Hood is one of those players it takes a few shots to get into a game but Cal doesn’t give him the chance to do that. When I went to Big Blue Madness this season I looked at the team and I felt that the next up and comer on this squad would be Hood if Cal would give him a shot which he hasn’t done.

So Cal says you can win with six, which he done it with Massachusetts and it worked out there. Well if I remember correctly didn’t he get beat by a Kentucky team that year, and if memory serves me right he doesn’t have a national championship ring from any of his schools. But the team he did do that with he had Marcus Camby on that team, who was the number one player in the country, some would say that is missing from the Cats this season but now if you ask Cal he believes that Terrence Jones is that guy:

“I told Terrence: You can be the best player in the country and I’m not backing up-I’m not backing up off you. You should be the best player in the country. Go play that way.”

Well in order for Jones to be that guy and for the Cats to win with these six guys he has to bring his “A” game every night. He has done better recently but at one point this season when he was dropped to a bench player his game dropped with it. Whether that be the stress of being a freshman or the stress of playing for Cal who knows but he has to be on top of his game every single night in order for this time to be successful. The guys also have to learn to play together as a team, I know this is a hard concept being that half the team doesn’t get to see the ball in a game and half the time could skip taking a shower but they have to work together as one.

In recent games the six men has in a way hurt the team and they are beginning to take on water. I feel in cases like last night’s lose against Ole Miss if you would have brought in players like Hood or Eloy Vargus in earlier you might have stopped the foul situation from getting so bad and would have allowed Brandon Knight to play more in the first half. Cal has those guys on the team for a reason now I hope it is more than practice bodies but I feel he should use them in games. When we are up by 10 or more it is ok to rest players for a minute or two and allow the bench of play.

Talking about the six man rotation Cal said. “But the biggest thing is, teams that play (six men), you have to be an execution team,” he went on to say. “You have to do that for 40 minutes, and you have finish people off.”

Over the Last four games we have went two-for-two and honestly we had a shot at all of them but it came down to us getting out played down the stretch and not being able to “finish people off”. Cal wants the guys like Miller and Harrellson to take over in late games but they are so wore down by the time it gets there it falls into the hands of freshmen. I believe if Cal was to play more players throughout the game when it comes to the big moment the older guys could finish things off.

Do I believe a six man rotation is a good idea? No. Do I believe we can win a national championship with a six man rotation? No, but I pray to God I am wrong.

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