Kentucky Wildcat Basketball Preview: #30 Eloy Vargas

Name: Eloy Vargas

6-11/244

Moca, Dominican Republic

High School: American Heritage High

Junior College: Miami-Dade College

Before playing for the Cats:

Eloy Vargas has traveled down quite the road to make his way to wearing the white and blue for Kentucky. Although being from the Dominican Republic, Eloy did his high school ballin’ in America, where he played for American Heritage High School where he led the team to a 18-9 record as a senior in 2007-2008 and averaged 21 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks. His stay also included a triple-double, and a 40 point game. He made his way onto the First Team All County and Second Team All-State his senior year.

From Scout.Com:

“Excellent long term prospect. Long and blocks a lot of shots. Strength is an issue and it would allow him to finish inside. Has a skill package and a high ceiling for growth.” Scout.Com also says that on the plus side Eloy has defensive presence, length and he plays facing the basket, but says he needs to work on his rebounding, strength and finishing around the hoop, which is some of the problems Kentucky has been seeing from Eloy when he strapped it up for the Cats last year.

This Summer:

Vargas has worked hard in the off-season and has done very little but play basketball and put out some hilarious tweets, I’ll save those for another time. Eloy traveled to China to play basketball with Sports Reach USA, which is the same program other UK players have used in the past. The biggest part of his summer was spent playing with the Dominican Republic National Team which came one hair of making the Olympics, while Eloy did not make the final roster, playing with great players obviously make you better, just ask Josh Harrellson.

What You Can Expect This Season:

A Josh Harrellson like transformation. I know it’s a bit of a stretch to assume this because it seems as if Harrellson was catching lightning in a bottle, but if anyone can do it, it’s Coach Calipari, especially with the talent level Eloy will be playing with in practice each day. When you’re having to guard Kyle Wiltjer, Terrence Jones and Anthony Davis, some of that experience is bound to wear off. Last season Vargas only averaged half a point and a couple of rebounds, and this year he’s not going to be needed except to give the big boys a break but that’s okay! This Kentucky team needs role-players like Vargas, so he isn’t going to be thrown in like Harrellson and have to play unless one of the UK players go down with an injury. Regardless, a Harrellson transformation would be nice, but as long as Vargas can come in, score a few buckets and be competitive, Kentucky will be fine with him in that role….But then again…This would be nice:

Calipari on Eloy:

“I think the work Eloy put in this summer with the Reach USA trip and the Dominican Republic National Team will pay off this year. The experience of playing against veteran players showed Eloy what he needs to do to take his game to the next level. Eloy is long and highly skilled and we’re going to need him to log some major minutes in our frontcourt this season.”

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