2017 2018
KENTUCKY
KENTUCKY BASKETBALL : YOUNG , PROMISING AND BATHED IN SHADOWS
BY STEVE KAUFMAN
Monk , Fox and Adebayo are in the NBA . Willis , Briscoe , Hawkins and Humphries are gone , too . And the Wildcats start all over again . Again .
There ’ s a UK basketball schedule and poster out right now . Across the poster is the 2017-18 team , their silhouettes shrouded in shadowy gray . You can ’ t make out who they are , or see their faces .
Behind them is a wall of former Kentucky stars , all of whom you can see clearly – Anthony Davis , Julius Randle , Karl-Anthony Towns , John Wall , Brandon Knight , DeMarcus Cousins , Tyler Ulis , Jamal Murray , the Harrisons . There are two profound messages here . One , Kentucky basketball history provides a challenge for each new freshman group to live up to .
Two , the dark silhouetting is apt . We know very little about these individuals .
It ’ s an annual rite of autumn for John Calipari to say ( a ) this is the youngest college team in the country , and ( b ) boy , do they have a lot to learn !
This year , though , he ’ s saying it ’ s the youngest college basketball team in history . And , if you saw the Blue-White scrimmage in October , boy do they have a lot to learn !
Rarely has a team , even a Calipari / Kentucky team , turned over to this extent . Of the main participants on last year ’ s squad , the only returnees are Wenyan Gabriel , who played 672 minutes and started 23 games but had lost his starting spot to Derek Willis by the end of the season ; and Sacha Killeya-Jones , who played 14 games and 96 minutes but sat on the bench the entire last three months of the season .
Gabriel has good experience , he just needed to bulk up some . It seems he has .
Interestingly , on a 40-minute basis – one of those statistical tricks that evaluates a player ’ s
Continued on Page 44 statistics-per-minute , as if he had played entire games – Killeya-Jones would have had 12.9 rebounds a game last year , more than Bam Adebayo . Only Willis had more .
So , the returners may contribute more than expected .
But the real expectations rest on the shoulders of these freshmen , perhaps the most impressive group in the Calipari tenure – certainly the deepest . The problem is , who are they ?
A good question . With a few exceptions , they ’ re a bunch of tall , very athletic kids who are reportedly able to play a variety of positions , from handling the ball , to shooting from the outside , to going strong to the basket , to rebounding on both ends . Which , if accurate , would make almost any combination of five of them a tremendous matchup problem for opponents . How do you guard 6-foot-9 with 6-3 or 6-4 ? And if you put the typical 6-foot-9 big man on one of them , you ’ re giving up speed , quickness and agility .
The exceptions are Quade Green , a 6-1 point guard who ’ s stepping into the big shoes of De ’ Aaron Fox , Ulis , Harrison , Knight and Wall ; Jemarl Baker , a 6-4 guard reputed to be the best shooter of the group ; and Nick Richards , a 7-footer whose only position is center .
Of the rest , the most familiar of the freshman names is Hamidou Diallo , a 6-5 guard from New York who was on the Kentucky roster half of last year and practiced with the team but never played a game . Diallo has amazing physical skills , but his outside shooting has been questioned .
The most promising of the freshman names is Kevin Knox , a 6-9 forward from Florida , reputed to be agile and athletic and able to score from anywhere . It ’ s said he can also handle the ball , if necessary .
The most intriguing name is P . J . Washington , a muscular 6-7 forward from Texas , who can also shoot from long .
The most mysterious name is Shai Gilgeous- Alexander , a 6-6 guard from Canada who was not upgraded to four stars by the ratings groups until very late , after he ’ d already committed to UK . Apparently , nobody had seen anything promising about him – until , suddenly , they did . It ’ s said he can play point guard or shooting guard or swingman or forward , and will be a nightmare on defense for opposing teams .
The most frustrating name is Jarred Vanderbilt , a five-star 6-9 forward from Houston who has outrageous skills and a bad foot . Vanderbilt first hurt the foot at the very end of an AAU game in the spring , hurt it again on campus in September , and is out either until the second semester in January ; or just the first week or so of games ; or , Calipari now says , perhaps the whole season .
Calling them forwards or guards is almost superfluous . Calipari has his buzz phrase for the season – “ positionless basketball ” – in which almost any of these players can play outside or inside , on the ball or off the ball , shooting jumpers or layups or dunks . There is the true possibility of playing five players on the court at one time the shortest of whom is 6-foot-9 . That ’ s almost reminiscent of the 2014-15 team that occasionally had 7-foot Willie Cauley-Stein , 6-11 Karl-Anthony Towns and 6-10 Trey Lyles on the court at the same time , with the 6-foot-6 Harrison twins . You might remember that team .
22 EXTOL SPORTS / NOVEMBER 2017