Kentucky Wildcat Basketball: What's wrong with the Wildcats?

This Kentucky team is a very talented group of players. The freshmen on the roster, Liggins, Miller and even Jon Hood were top fifty or better players coming out of high school. Not only those guys, but Eloy Vargas was very well thought of coming from the high school ranks.

So if you ask the question: “What’s wrong with Kentucky?” Your answer won’t be talent.

The answer is three-fold.

Kentucky doesn’t have a consistent inside presence on either end of the court. Obviously Terrence Jones is as talented as any forward in America, but Jones wanders outside fairly often and even when he is inside, he struggles to finish over bigger and stronger players. Ultimately, Jones will be a small forward in the pros, but that shouldn’t stop him from being a four in the NCAA.

Josh Harrellson has put in work this season, working harder than every before and being rewarded with accolades for that work, but in the end, he will have problems defending quicker players and there are many inside players in the SEC who will give him fits.

Eloy Vargas just doesn’t have the physical nature required to compete in the SEC. That may be the reason why he didn’t make it at Florida as a freshman.

Another problem is lack of depth.

Kentucky plays Jon Hood and Eloy Vargas off the bench as the seventh and eighth man, but neither player plays significant minutes and neither player has been able to truly carve out a niche for himself.

Kentucky basically has six starters, which includes the normal starters and Doron Lamb. When one or two starters get into foul trouble, Kentucky will struggle. With the SEC road games always being tough venues, it’s a regular occurance to see foul trouble by starters. With the lack of depth and guys like Vargas and Hood playing for those starters, often you’ll see Kentucky fall behind because they are basically playing five on four or even five on three.

The third issue is youth.

This is a team that has basically two players who have played meaningful minutes in their careers. Both DeAndre Liggins and Darius Miller have been contributors to the team the last three years. While Hood and Harrellson both were on last year’s team, they didn’t play much at all. Eloy Vargas is a junior, but this is basically his first season playing D-1 ball because he wasn’t a factor at all at Florida as a freshman.

While talented, the trio of Brandon Knight, Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb just don’t have the experience to face the rigors of the road in the SEC without a strong leading personality on the court. Players like Patrick Patterson or Chuck Hayes from years past would have been ideal players for this group because they are natural leaders and they played starring roles on this team.

During the latter Tubby Smith years and during the Billy Gillispie years, Wildcat fans pined for great recruiting classes which they believed undoubtedly would eventually lead to final fours and maybe an eighth national title. What Wildcat fans haven’t accounted for is the turnover in the program and the instability that leads to.

Eventually I’d like to see Calipari find some three and four year players who will be leaders, put points on the board and defend. If he can find that happy median between one-and-done players and quality upperclassmen, the Wildcats will be on their way to the success that the program craves.

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