With Jodie Meeks keeping his name in the NBA Draft, UK Coach John Calipari will have an interesting battle in the preseason for the starting two guard and small forward spots.
While in the DDM offense, both guards act as ball-handlers primarily, a big part of the system is a drive and kick-out for an open 3-pointer. Meeks was supposed to assume that role and shoot the Cats straight to title #8. A starting 5 of Wall, Meeks, Miller, Patterson, and Cousins was what Big Blue fans have been looking forward to since the Wall press conference. Now, there is a glaring hole that will have to be filled, most likely by one of the newcomers.
The word on Darnell Dodson is that he can be a lights-out 3-point shooter, that according to his JUCO coach. My speculation is that Dodson was the top option at his school, therefore his open looks were limited. If he can sit in the corner and knock down those shots all season, I think you have your answer. But that means he would be acting as the two guard, and at 6'6" and no word on his ball-handling skills, that could be an issue for Cal's offense. A starting 5 with Dodson would look like this: Wall, Dodson, Miller, Patterson, and Cousins.
Scouts are really high on Eric Bledsoe, and he said in his press conference that Coach Cal promised him a starting spot. So the Cats could go with a two-point-guard system with Miller as the spot-up shooter/mismatch. Problem is, we saw two different Millers last season — one that was too timid to shoot the open 3 and missed when he tried, and one that shot the ball with confidence and a pure form. If Coach Cal can bring out the latter Darius, I think you have a starting 5 of Wall, Bledsoe, Miller, Patterson, and Cousins with Miller becoming the kick-out option and Wall and Bledsoe wreaking all kinds of havoc on drives.
Regardless of who steps up in practice (looking at you, Jon Hood), losing Meeks does hurt Kentucky's championship chances, but we tend to forget that the best recruiting class in basketball history (that's right, I said it) is coming to Lexington, and Patterson and Cousins — both 2010 first-rounders — will be lurking inside. Two of last year's starters — Ramon Harris and Perry Stevenson — will be the last options on the bench. That's where we have come since April. A title run is still not out of the question.
Good luck to Jodie — I know he'll be cheering the Cats on as ferociously as we will.
Article by Tyler Young
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3 comments:
Ha ha, jodi don't want to play for a dirty coach and I wouldn't either. If you ask me if billy was here he would return. Nobody wants to play for a dirty coah.
You are very misinformed. Billy Gillispie told Meeks that he would kick him off the team if he didn't stop shooting. He didn't even call Meeks' family to talk to them after Jodie's 54-point game - every other coach at every level called Meeks' family after that game. You have no idea what you are talking about - sounds like sour grapes.
Kind of over-confident eh? Do you know that you will be starting two freshmen guards and two freshmen big men against experienced players in the SEC? I can't wait to hear the screaming from JC and see how those freshmen react. I can see the headlines now, "Freshmen Not Ready For Prime Time", "Missed Free Throws Costly In Loss To Louisville", etc. You think that you'll still make a run in the NCAA, without the point production of Jodie? Just like your new coach, arrogance reigns at Kentucky.
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