The Kentucky Wildcats Basketball team tips off their 2014-15 season tonight at Rupp Arena as one of the favorites to win the NCAA Championship. And like last year, the 40-0 talk is starting. This time, it’s not coming from Kentucky Wildcats fans, Most Kentucky fans consider the 40-0 talk a curse and avoid it at every opportunity. Yet pundits are going to talk and it is the experts who are throwing that undefeated talk around. Former Dookie Jay Williams is the latest.
"Q: Is Kentucky clearly the team to beat? A: If there’s any year we are talking about Kentucky being undefeated any year it’s this year. It’s the scariest team I’ve ever seen Calipari have. Marcus Lee had scouts talking about him being a top-15 draft pick with the way he played in the NCAA Tournament last year in a couple of games and he might be the ninth or tenth guy off the bench. Q: What is John Calipari’s challenge? A: In their two preseason games nobody played over 19 minutes. It’s a platoon system. Calipari has always done a great job of muffling the noise around his players and the program. I don’t think a lot of people take that into account. He’s going to have disgruntled players on this team; their second unit could be a top-25 team. You are going to have players mad at the lack of playing time. Finding a way to massage the egos is going to be the biggest challenge."
In my opinion, the “undefeated talk” is way premature and really kind of preposterous. Once again, it’s not really the Kentucky outlets touting this, so it’s not adding the crush of pressure like it did last year. But let’s get to January without a loss and maybe we can talk, OK?
Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports
Even with the euphoria of the commitments of Skal Labissiere and Isaiah Briscoe last night, Kentucky Wildcats fans are curbing their enthusiasm on Skal. From all accounts, there is not a problem with Skal Labissiere and his character or even academics. Yet his association with his guardian, Gerald Hamilton, is going to be a constant theme over the next year.
"Hamilton brought Labissiere to the United States in 2010 after an earthquake devastated the basketball prodigy’s home country of Haiti. He is now Labissiere’s legal guardian and has been the person responsible for handling his recruitment. Labissiere, who lives with Hamilton and his family, played for Evangelical Christian School in Memphis when he was first recruited by John Calipari and several other major college coaches. Over the summer, he transferred across town to Lausanne Collegiate School but was ruled ineligible by the governing body of Tennessee high school athletics because of circumstances surrounding the transfer. Labissiere remains a full-time student at Lausanne, but Hamilton has since established his own traveling team — Reach Your Dream Prep — to get Labissiere back on the court this season, though the team has not yet played a game and has no set roster or schedule. Hamilton’s motives have been questioned in several reports over the past few months, including a CBSSports.com story Wednesday from Gary Parrish, who has written extensively about Labissiere’s recruitment and quoted an AAU coach who recalled that Hamilton asked him how he could “make money” off top basketball recruits."
For the record, I think that Skal is a low risk, high reward prospect. Gary Parrish says that it is a “coin flip” as to whether Skal ever suits up at Kentucky and I think that is a fair assessment. That said, if you are John Calipari, you take this commitment for the Kentucky Wildcats. It is true that he may be ineligible like Enes Kanter, yet you can bet that John Calipari will keep recruiting as if he does not have this commitment from Labissiere. That is why I think Skal is a low risk. John Calipari is going to recruit and sign other bigs and not base his team on Skal becoming eligible, which may have happened with the Enes Kanter situation. When a guy like Skal commits, you take it. I am assuming that Kentucky can start working on his eligibility (at least behind the scenes) as soon as he signs his papers. Hopefully by the Spring, John Calipari has a clear take on the eligibility issues and will recruit accordingly.
Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports
A lot has been made about the depth and experience on this Kentucky Wildcats basketball team and Kentucky does return six players with national title game experience. Alex Poythress is one of the players I am the most excited about as this can be a breakout season for the junior. The coaches have been touting a “rebuilt engine” this year and is expected to be one of the leaders on this team. Whatever his role on this team, Alex Poythress is going to embrace it.
"The junior is stronger, more athletic, and more assertive as he grows into his leadership role on this team. Having so much experience on the roster this year, with eight players returning, makes defining roles much easier. No one player has to pull the whole team’s weight. “I feel like our roles are more defined this year, people know what to do, people know what to expect, we know who our leaders our, we know what people are so we just know what to do out there,” Poythress said Thursday, before UK’s season opener against Grand Canyon. The junior said that Willie Cauley-Stein, the Harrison twins and himself have stepped into leadership roles. Poythress says his role is “just being a leader, stepping up for the young guys, playing defense, (and) doing whatever (he) needs to do.”"