The Sporting News has listed 64 reasons to be excited about the upcoming college basketball season and Kentucky was mentioned or the topic of at least 11 of the reasons.
I could give you 24,000 reasons I am excited, but here are the one’s Kentucky is mentioned in:
49. Kentucky reloading with another stacked recruiting class
As long as John Calipari is in Lexington, expect Kentucky to bring in one of the nation’s best recruiting classes every year. This year’s group includes the potential No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft (Skal Labissiere), a Canadian point guard with star potential (Jamal Murray), and another point guard (Isaiah Briscoe) who could operate effectively alongside Murray and returnee Tyler Ulis. The Wildcats lost seven players to the draft this offseason, including top overall pick Karl-Anthony Towns, but they’re reloading with another crop of elite talent.
45. The Tip-Off tournament
Reward yourself for surviving six months without college basketball by drowning in it for more than 24 hours beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 16. The annual Tip-Off Tournament features everything from the marquee matchups in the Champions Classic (Kentucky-Duke and Michigan State-Kansas in Chicago) to the obscure (Nevada at Hawaii at 4 a.m.). But it’s all college hoops, all the time. Come next May, you’ll be dying for Green Bay-East Tennessee State (6 a.m.). Don’t take it for granted.
44. The Champions Classic
Even if you tend to tune out college basketball until football ends, make sure to catch at least part of this event. Because it’s great. During the first week of the regular season, four projected Top 25 teams will square off in a doubleheader. In this year’s installment, Duke will face Kentucky in the first matchup, and then Michigan State will take on Kansas. None of these squads will be in peak form at this point, but the games will offer an early indication of where they stand in the national pecking order.
43. The SEC’s collective improvement
Kentucky is the clear frontrunner in the SEC, but several other teams could make leaps forward this season, which should make conference play more interesting. Texas A&M is welcoming in a strong recruiting class highlighted by three top-40 prospects, Vanderbilt brings back a number of key contributors including first-team All-SEC center Damian Jones and LSU is adding two five-star prospects (Ben Simmons and Antonio Blakeney). The conference also made a few high-profile coaching hires this offseason: Avery Johnson (Alabama), Ben Howland (Mississippi State) and Rick Barnes (Tennessee).
40. Skal Labissiere at Kentucky
At this point, Labiessiere is perhaps best known for announcing in October that he would play for a team that didn’t yet exist, Reach Your Dream Prep. The team did end up forming, but the unusual circumstances led to Labissiere being ruled ineligible for the McDonald’s All-American game. The team he heads to now is no mystery to anyone. Under John Calipari, Labissiere should rise out of obscurity, absorb a huge role in the post and potentially leave school to become the No. 1 or No. 2 pick in the 2016 NBA draft.
35. Drake’s relationship with Kentucky
Kentucky reportedly sent Drake a cease-and-desist letter after his contact with recruits at last year’s Big Blue Madness event constituted a Level III NCAA violation. Wildcats coach John Calipari made clear on Twitter that the multi-platinum rapper is welcome in Lexington and that he “is and always will be a part of our Big Blue family.” Whether or not Drake performs at this year’s Big Blue Madness event, it would be nice if Kentucky gave him a shot to redeem himself after his airballed jump shot went viral last year. Failing that, maybe we can just #blamedrake every time the Wildcats lose this season?22. Nonconference upsets
While some teams line up a string of challenging opponents for the early part of the season, others choose to load up on tomato cans. Sometimes that strategy works out: Your team piles up wins without challenging itself and builds some confidence before conference play. Other times, it backfires. Last season alone, we saw Michigan lose at home to NJIT and Michigan State fall to Texas Southern. Which small school will shock a heavily favored major-conference squad at home this season? Should Kentucky be worried about its season-opening game against Albany at Rupp Arena? Probably not.
17. SEC basketball fever
After a slew of strong coaching hires this off-season, SEC basketball fanbases are more excited about the hardcourt than they have been in several years. With Avery Johnson at Alabama, Bruce Pearl at Auburn (hired two years ago), Rick Barnes at Tennessee, Ben Howland at Mississippi State and Michael White at Florida, expect new rivalries to emerge and expect more five-star recruits to land at SEC schools not named Kentucky. Of course, until someone dethrones them, John Calipari’s Wildcats are still kings.
11. Kentucky-Louisville
The two squads meet the day after Christmas in Rupp Arena. With a win at the KFC Yum! Center last year, Kentucky cleared one of its biggest hurdles en route to an undefeated regular season. The stakes won’t be as high this season, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch. Kentucky projects to be better than Louisville despite losing seven players to the NBA, though the Cardinals could outperform expectations after adding two graduate transfers (Damion Lee and Trey Lewis) and highly regarded shooting guard recruit Donovan Mitchell this off-season. Even if this game won’t go down as one of the best in the rivalry’s history, it’ll still be the best game during the slow winter break.
6. Player of the year race
You have to go back to 1995 to find a year that the Naismith Award and the Wooden Award went to different players. Could this be the year to break that streak? Unlike last season, when Frank Kaminsky and Jahlil Okafor were 1a and 1b essentially from Game 1, this isn’t a two-horse race. And although LSU’s Ben Simmons or Kentucky’s Skal Labissiere could have exceptional seasons, odds are that an upperclassmen will be taking home the hardware again this year. Early favorites include Wisconsin’s Nigel Hayes, North Carolina’s Marcus Paige, Providence’s Kris Dunn and Iowa State’s Georges Niang.
3. John Calipari’s new go-to phrase
We spent way too much time last year dissecting Calipari’s platoon system. Was it effective? Which players belonged in which platoon? In May, about a month after Kentucky fell to Wisconsin in the Final Four, Calipari tried to make clear that he won’t be platooning anymore, writing in a post on his website that, “I think how you will see us playing going forward will be closer to how we have always played. That won’t be platooning.” You may not hear the word “platoon” much this year, but get ready to see the Wildcats play some “position-less” basketball. By the end of the season, don’t be surprised if Cal comes up with yet another term to describe his team’s style.
Read the entire article “64 reasons to be excited for the 2015-16 college basketball season” by clicking here.
I just hope the #9 is a number we will have on our t-shirts by the month of April.
