Kentucky Basketball: A Look Into the Future

The good thing about Kentucky fans? We haven’t even started the 2011-2012 campaign, yet the message boards are talking about what Kentucky players will go pro and what the starting line-up will look like next season. Lucky for you, I’m one of those fans who find it intriguing in guessing and tinkering with the line-up next year. Let’s take a look at the current line-up, and who I think will be going pro next season, and who Kentucky will lose to graduation:

Marquis Teague-G

Doron Lamb-G

Darius Miller-F

Terrence Jones-F

Anthony Davis-F/C

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist-F

Kyle Wiltjer-F/C

Eloy Vargas-C

That’s the current eight man rotation that Kentucky is going to go with for the rest of the season. Jarrod Polson may get thrown in when needed, and Tywany Beckham the transfer from Mississippi State will be eligible the second semester and will get back-up point guard duties when Kentucky is running low. Before we break down the class and starting lineup for next year, let’s see who we think will go pro, this is saying there is an NBA season next semester.

First the two obvious, Darius Miller is the lone senior in the line up along with Eloy Vargas, a little father down on the depth chart but still a big body Kentucky will be losing on the front line. So now, what player’s will go pro?

Let’s start out with the most obvious: Terrence Jones. Jones is a preseason All-American at the power forward position who probably, despite lack of extraordinary numbers last season, would have went in the top 15 of last year’s draft, but he made the choice to stay back. Barring injury or anything, Jones is most likely going to the draft this year, and is going to be a top five pick, so that’s three players from the current seven man rotation that Kentucky will be losing.

The second most obvious choice will be Anthony Davis. Davis will also be a top five pick even if he doesn’t produce all-American numbers because—well, look at him. He’s a freak of nature at 6-11 and one of the biggest threats to score on the floor for Kentucky, and he can do it in a number of ways. In the mock drafts upcoming in the next couple of weeks, Anthony Davis will probably be number one overall in the draft.

Five players down of the top eight which leaves three players, Marquis Teague, Kyle Wiltjer, Doron Lamb and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.  Out of these three, who is the most likely one to go pro? I’m going to say Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. While Gilchrist probably needs to gain a better shot before he goes to the league, his exposure at Kentucky will be the thing that pushes him into a top ten pick, and probably off to the league.

That leaves Kyle Wiltjer and Doron Lamb from the eight man rotation that will be at Kentucky next year, and not in the draft. Lamb probably won’t be a top 20 pick simply because a lot of players are like Lamb, that is to say, Lamb is a lot like other players. A lot of players can attack the basketball and shoot the basketball as well as Lamb, he’s going to have to work at least another year to go in the first round, Wiltjer on the other hand just seems like one of those type of guys who is going to be a three year player. He’s going to have to add some bulk and a bit more speed before he goes to the league, and I think it’ll take three years to develop that.

So two players in the rotation at this point:

Doron Lamb-G

Kyle Wiltjer-F/C

Now let’s take a look at Kentucky’s recruiting class for next year so far:

Ryan Harrow-G

Archie Goodwin (3rd ranked shooting guard)-G

Willie Cauley(10th ranked center)-C

Alex Poythress(3rd ranked power forward)-F

That’s the solid commitments that John Calipari has so far in the class, I’ll leave it to you to check out the games of each of these recruits, because they’ll change and get better over the course of the next year, plus Calipari still has at least power forward on the menu to grab, along with the gem of the class—Shabazz Muhammed.

So the lineup, if Kentucky doesn’t get their targets would be filled with some JUCO guys, would read as this:

Ryan Harrow-G

Doron Lamb-G

Archie Goodwin-G/F

Kyle Wiltjer-F/C

Willie Cauley-C

Alex Poythress-F/C

Twyany Beckham-G

Jarrod Polson-G

Jon Hood-F

So as you can see, even if Kentucky doesn’t get the two recruits they really want to finish out the 2012 recruiting trail, they still have a solid team to fall back on, with a little depth, but a lot of young talent (what else is new?).  We’ll see how this line-up shapes up over the course of the next few weeks, and whenever Shabazz decides to come on down.

Kaboom.