Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News had an article regarding the pre-season rankings for college basketball. I agreed with some of the issues (Florida is overrated, Memphis is underrated), but I have to disagree with his view on Kentucky. Of Kentucky he says,
[QUOTE]What do you do with them? No. 11 Kentucky. It’s quite simple. If UK has center Enes Kanter for a significant portion of the season, it’ll be better than this ranking. If he doesn’t play for the Wildcats, they won’t be nearly this good. Any vote for Kentucky at this point is a stab in the dark.[/QUOTE] ([URL=”http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/feed/2010-10/basketball-polls”]source[/URL])
First, if you don’t believe in Kentucky, believe in Calipari – the man hasn’t seen less than 30 wins in years. Second, I agree that adding Kanter bumps UK into National Championship talk again, however, I disagree that without Kanter Kentucky is “not nearly this good”. Even without Kanter (who I hope gets to play), UK has three 5-star freshmen (Knight, Jones and Lamb), two 4-star newcomers (Vargas and Poole) and three 4-star returning players (Miller, Liggins and Hood). That’s not even counting Harrelson, who could be a big help once he learns how to tweet.
No, the raw talent of these recruits doesn’t quite match that of Wall and Cousins, but that raw talent came with a lot of raw emotion that got the Cats into some trouble last year. This year’s class seems a lot more even tempered. Knight may not be the freak athlete Wall was, but he’s twice the shooter and seems to be a more cerebral player (and he’s still a top 10 athlete). Jones may not have the size and fearlessness that Boogie had, but he’s much faster and (again) twice the shooter (and a top 10 athlete in his own right). Add Miller and Liggins – a year older and more experienced – and Kentucky has everything: talent, athleticism, good-shooting and upperclassmen leadership. Go ahead and try to lower the expectations Calipari, it’s not working on me.
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