University of Kentucky
Basketball lies in the hearts and souls of Kentucky citizens. With no current professional sports team located in the state, the people of Kentucky turn to the next best thing: University of Kentucky basketball.
Head coach John Calipari came to the university in 2009 after recent successes at UMass and Memphis. He promptly led his team to three consecutive NCAA tournaments, including Elite 8 and Final Four appearances, before winning the national championship last season with an NCAA-record 38 wins. But that was last season. This year, it’s a slightly different story.
Kentucky lost six of its best players from the national championship team to the NBA Draft. One of them being Anthony Davis, the best player in college basketball. However, the Wildcats entered this season still ranked third overall because of their strong recruiting class.
Now, the recruiting of Calipari is what makes him a great coach. He has a way of getting two or three of the best players in high school every year to come play for him. It happened in Memphis and it’s been happening at Kentucky for the last four years.
From Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans to John Wall and Anthony Davis, Calipari is getting the best high-schoolers in the country and turning them into college stars and eventual NBA lottery picks – all during one college year of basketball.
This season’s version is Nerlens Noel, a 6’10’’ freshman center and the top-rated high school player last year. He is joined by fellow freshmen standouts Alex Poythress and Archie Goodwin. All three expect to be drafted among the top five in next year’s NBA Draft.
So they have their future laid out for them, but what about this season? Well, so far the term “overrated” is being thrown around a lot – especially after the most recent Associated Press rankings.
Kentucky basketball, standing at No. 8 last week, was left out of this week’s AP Top 25 rankings. It is the first time in Calipari’s four-year tenure as Kentucky head coach that the Wildcats haven’t been ranked. Two key losses to Notre Dame and Baylor last week forced the huge drop as the team has fallen to 4-3 on the season.
After winning the national championship last season and returning another highly rated recruiting class, it wasn’t surprising to see Kentucky ranked No. 3 in the preseason polls. However now the nation is seeing the real 2012-13 Kentucky Wildcats for what they really are.
They’ve lost to top teams in Duke and Notre Dame, and barely beat an up-and-coming Maryland squad. After a four-game stretch versus mid-major, lesser-talented teams, Kentucky will face No. 5 Louisville on December 29. The matchup will serve as another proving ground for a Wildcats team that has failed at their previous ones.
The main ingredient that this year’s Kentucky team is missing is the senior and upperclassman leadership. Darius Miller, Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb provided just that for the National champion Wildcats last season. When freshmen standouts on the team, like first overall NBA draft pick Davis, went awry, the aforementioned players were there to use their experience for the better of the team.
That component is flat-out nonexistent for this year’s squad. Their most experienced player this season is sophomore Kyle Wiltjer, who barely played last year on a star-studded team.
All in all, the current Kentucky Wildcats are overrated and now, unranked. The team obviously still has time to right the ship, but it has to start off the court – gelling into a team where the leaders come forth to bring a second championship home for Calipari. It’s a task that isn’t impossible, but highly improbable.
