Kentucky Exhibition

#1
Unimane

Unimane

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#1
Alright, I've watched about 1/2 of the UK exhibition against NAIA Pikeville. A few thoughts:

1. One player stands out as being sorely missed, Patrick Patterson. An experienced post player is sorely missed on this team.

2. They need Enes Kanter, otherwise, they'll be in serious trouble down the road. Their inside presence is practically non-existant, Jones and Vargas were decent, but unspectacular against a very undersized Pikeville frontline.

3. Brandon Knight will be an excellent player, but he's not John Wall. Knight has the most potential and that was very evident tonight. He's quick, composed and I liked his shooting form. However, he's not as explosive as Wall and, an underrated aspect of Wall, not as strong, either.

4. Darius Miller and DeAndre Liggins are solid players in the rotation. Good athletes and defenders, decent shooters and will get on the glass.

5. I think their outside shooting will be better. They were able to get to the basket often against the slower Pikeville players, but I thought I saw more capable and quality shooters in Doron Lamb and Brandon Knight when the time came.

6. No one gave me the Wow Factor. Last year, I saw Wall and, to an extent, Cousins, and knew immediately I was looking at lottery picks. Despite Knight's ability, no one gave me that impression. I saw a lot of possibility, but nothing that suggested a top ten team.

All in all, I know I sound overly negative (overconfident), but this first exhibition for the Cats showed me they have a long way to go in order to justify their lofty ranking. I know they nearly got clipped by some lower level D-1 teams early last year, so today isn't going to determine much of anything. However, an undersized, athletically limited NAIA team should not get within 50 points of UK.

I will be very curious as to the progression of this UK team, but they seem, to me, ripe for the taking this year.
 
#4
#4
1) Comparing this team to last years is futile. There are not 5 draft picks on this team, so its a waste of time to compare Knight/Wall, Lamb/Bledsoe, etc etc. Of course Knight is not Wall, who is?

2) It is indeed the first exhibition game and things will look different during SEC play. Cals teams always progress during the season. However, this team is probably losing 5-8 games this season.

3) This team is hurting bad on the post. Even with Kanter we will be thin in regards to depth, but we will be at a big disadvantage on the box this year. Hopefully we don't get killed on the offensive boards.

4) Terrence Jones seems to have a bit of the Scotty Hopson disease that he had in his freshmen year. His defense visibly had no effort whatsoever, and he jacked up some bad shots. I expect this to clear itself up in the season, and quite frankly it has to. Jones has to be an aggressive scorer on this team, and will have to fill a rebounding gap.

5) It was Pikeville, but Miller is showing big strides in improvement. He did a good job creating space and getting to the rim, and his floater and mid-range jumpers looked great. The kid could easily score 20ppg if he would quit disspearing in the game so much and keep his confidence.

6) It was rumored a couple days ago that Cal told someone that this might be the best team he has had on the break. That very well could be the case, because this team is fast. He applied some press last night, though its not likely we will press to much with this team. He has said he wants a 7 man rotation for this season, so I highly doubt we use it that much.

7) This team will shoot it better from behind the arc this season.

8) Kanter is the difference between this team being ranked 7-8, and 16-20.
 
#5
#5
After Camp Cal this team will be a very good team going into the tourney. They have the talent to go deep into it. Should be a fun year to watch this team and others grow.
 
#6
#6
Cal postgame comments, for those interested. I bolded what stood out to me.

Opening comments:

Well, we really had no real fight or viciousness to our game, we didn’t really rebound. We did turn it over 15 times, couldn’t make a three… but other than that I thought we showed some good signs. The only good news is last year when we played Campbellsville we looked the same…

The thing with a game like this, I thought Pikeville came out - like every team we play does - with a high energy, an aggressiveness. They were pretty big kids. They were seniors and they banged our freshmen around. If we learned from this, that means it was a great game to play. If we didn’t, that means we’ll have to find some other way, I got to get them to understand. And that means I’ll probably have to get meaner which I don’t like to do. Just learn, you know what just happened. Let’s get better…

On Brandon Knight:

I thought he played pretty well. I mean, he’s gotta get a feel for how we’re playing. You can’t just drive in the first play of the game, he’s got to get everybody involved. I mean, he’s got a green light. What he does, and what I like, was he’s got a fight. When he saw we were dying he took it and drove it. So at times I’m just gonna let him go. If no one else is gonna do it, I’m gonna do it all. But we can’t win that way. We’ve got to have him run our club. He’s a scoring guard that has to run our club.

If you ask me, that’s one of our strengths - that we shoot the ball. But we have to do it with numbers on our back and people in the seats. We gotta do it then.

On the energy:

The small lineup wasn’t particularly good today. I mean, if there’s no energy, you can’t play small guys. So we were better with one of those big guys in there instead of the small ones. Unless they want to come off the bench with that kind of energy, go crazy, then you can play that kind of line up.

On depth (and adding walk ons,):

Well here’s the problem, I’m not going to put guys on there just to put them on. And if I dont’ feel comfortable with somebody, I won’t put them on there, and we will just stay how we are. It is an issue, but I’ll be honest with you, I had the same situation in 95-96. Almost exactly the same, I think I had 8 scholarship guys and 4 walk ons. That team was a little more of a veteran team, but we have to play together better.

We’re not there yet. Are we in shape? I’m not sure we are. Are we physical enough? I know we’re not. We’re not tough enough. Do we find each other on the court?the court? We don’t. Are we skilled enough? Yeah, this is one of my more skilled teams, no question about it. So we should be playing together better.

-Can you manifest viciousness?

Oh yeah. What you have to have is a player understanding - either he outworks me or I outwork him. So now we have to go to practice and make that happen. We had guys getting outwork and being like, that’s okay. That’s not okay.

But what I told them, it’s November 1st, that’s okay. As long as you don’t make excuses for how you played. As long as you accept you got outworked, you got out toughed, you got out hustled. As long as you accept that you did not make each other better offensively. As long as you accept that you didn’t go offensive rebounding. If you accept it, we can work on it.

On hustle points-

The hustle points we had today was probably the lowest I’ve seen one of my teams have in 4-5 years. The hustle points in the first half were the lowest of any of my teams. It was 28. Usually a bad game will be 38 or 42. A good game will be about 50. If you get 60, you’re up 25 at the half. We were at 28. Second half was 36. That’s where we are, the other team out worked us.
This is a team sport. It’s five guys becoming a fist. Five guys together. One heart beat, we all know what we’re doing, we’re all responsible to each other. That takes time.
Click to expand...
 
#7
#7
They sure didn't look like a top 10 team, but no doubt they will improve as the season goes on. No real comparison to last year's team as they have a completely different make-up of players.
 
#8
#8
Hardwood_fanatic said:
1) Comparing this team to last years is futile. There are not 5 draft picks on this team, so its a waste of time to compare Knight/Wall, Lamb/Bledsoe, etc etc. Of course Knight is not Wall, who is?

2) It is indeed the first exhibition game and things will look different during SEC play. Cals teams always progress during the season. However, this team is probably losing 5-8 games this season.

3) This team is hurting bad on the post. Even with Kanter we will be thin in regards to depth, but we will be at a big disadvantage on the box this year. Hopefully we don't get killed on the offensive boards.

4) Terrence Jones seems to have a bit of the Scotty Hopson disease that he had in his freshmen year. His defense visibly had no effort whatsoever, and he jacked up some bad shots. I expect this to clear itself up in the season, and quite frankly it has to. Jones has to be an aggressive scorer on this team, and will have to fill a rebounding gap.

5) It was Pikeville, but Miller is showing big strides in improvement. He did a good job creating space and getting to the rim, and his floater and mid-range jumpers looked great. The kid could easily score 20ppg if he would quit disspearing in the game so much and keep his confidence.

6) It was rumored a couple days ago that Cal told someone that this might be the best team he has had on the break. That very well could be the case, because this team is fast. He applied some press last night, though its not likely we will press to much with this team. He has said he wants a 7 man rotation for this season, so I highly doubt we use it that much.

7) This team will shoot it better from behind the arc this season.

8) Kanter is the difference between this team being ranked 7-8, and 16-20.
Click to expand...

I generally agree with your comments, especially in regards to Kanter being very important to this team. Obviously, one exhibition against an NAIA team is not much of a sampling, but I still think the interior weaknesses of UK were shown.

As I said, I think this Uk team will shoot better, so I agree with you there. As far as Knight goes, yeah, Wall was special, but you really need Knight to be Wall-like for this team. Calipari's success recently has come from having a dynamic playmaker at the point and Knight is cut in that mold. He just has a lot on his shoulders and I just don't think he's as good as the recent PGs Cal's had (Of course, all of them were top 5 picks).

All in all, the two things that stood out to me was that UK looked very athletic and, physically, like freshman, unlike last year. So, that's why I think UK is more vulnerable this year as they have a better, comparatively, class coming in for 2011 and likely a little more experience left over from this year.
 
#10
#10
Unimane said:
I generally agree with your comments, especially in regards to Kanter being very important to this team. Obviously, one exhibition against an NAIA team is not much of a sampling, but I still think the interior weaknesses of UK were shown.

As I said, I think this Uk team will shoot better, so I agree with you there. As far as Knight goes, yeah, Wall was special, but you really need Knight to be Wall-like for this team. Calipari's success recently has come from having a dynamic playmaker at the point and Knight is cut in that mold. He just has a lot on his shoulders and I just don't think he's as good as the recent PGs Cal's had (Of course, all of them were top 5 picks).

All in all, the two things that stood out to me was that UK looked very athletic and, physically, like freshman, unlike last year. So, that's why I think UK is more vulnerable this year as they have a better, comparatively, class coming in for 2011 and likely a little more experience left over from this year.
Click to expand...

I have never been a "wait until next season" kind of person, but if next years class holds up (and we are adding at least one if not 2 more), then it will be a special team I think. From this team I think you will see Miller, Liggins, Lamb (and others) back for certain. Jones, Knight and Kanter (if eligible) are the three players most likely to leave, but at this point I'm not sold on their NBA stock just yet. (other than Kanter, he is next level)

This team will be fun and dynamic to watch in the open floor, and the DDM will be in full force. The Kanter situation is really holding this teams hopes hostage.
 
#12
#12
From watching the UK exhibition against Pikeville the other night I made a few observations as well...

1) Knight has a completely different body than the player he reminds me of, but his game resembles Dee Brown from that ridic IL team a few years back IMO. He can shoot, has quicks, but doesn't look like an elite next-level PG IMO.

2) Liggins and Miller look to be more aggressive and are embracing their new role.

3) T Jones has the frame and athleticism to be dominant and be a matchup nightmare if he can figure out how to finish. Decent FT shooter, but he was much more raw than I expected him to be. I would be shocked if he wasn't a 3 year player from limited perspective, admittedly.

4) The lack of a frontcourt is even worse than I thought. One big white stiff and a bunch of wings will not get it done on the glass unless you do nothing but throw up 3's ala UK's tourney exodus last season.

5) Coach Cal has his work cut out for him if Kanter is ineligible. UK will finish 3rd or 4th in the SEC East if Kanter is ineligible IMO
 
#13
#13
VolsSportsFan said:
Once the season gets started, my analysis will be worth just as much as yours.
Click to expand...

Why, when are these posts worth anything anyway? We're just talking around the water cooler here, for the most part. Either join in or don't bother.
 
#14
#14
Unimane said:
Why, when are these posts worth anything anyway? We're just talking around the water cooler here, for the most part. Either join in or don't bother.
Click to expand...

And that's what I did, by pointing out it's kind of ridiculous to proclaim that Kentucky is "ripe for the taking" based on one exhibition game; especially since somone seems to do it every year and usually are wrong. Just because you don't like what I added doesn't make it any less valid than your "analysis".

And maybe you should have waited until after UT's exhibition games were done first before you made your proclamation of Kentucky's ripeness, considering UT just had a dandy peformance.
 
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