Kentucky basketball: Player grades for 2017-2018 season

There is no easy way to say this, Nick Richards had a horrible season. For some inexcusable reason, John Calipari started Richards in all 37 games. It became obvious, especially in conference-play, that Richards was not the type of big man that Big Blue Nation was used to seeing Coach Cal recruit to play for the Kentucky basketball team.

Richards averaged less than 15 minutes per game. Late in the season, Calipari would start Richards, and then pull him less than 5 minutes into the game. We’d be lucky to see him again until sometime late in the second half, and only then it was if one of Cal’s front court players was in foul trouble.

Over the course of the season, you could say that Richards had 3 good games. He had 25 points and 15 rebounds against IPFW, 8 points and 9 rebounds versus Florida and 9 points and 8 rebounds against West Virginia. If Richards averaged 14 points and 10.6 rebounds, which is essentially those 3 games combined, the Cats might have only lost 3 games all season.

Richards just appeared lost on defense, and never was a threat in the pick -and-roll game with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Richards has a long way to go, but if he puts in the work, he could be dominant on the low block.