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Wall, Wildcats starting to show their potential to be something great

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LEXINGTON - You’d have to be a pretty hardened, cynical person to doubt that coach John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcats are going to be anything less than great this season, particularly if junior forward Patrick Patterson and freshman guard John Wall stay reasonably healthy.

One thing you can say for sure already: The Wildcats certainly are entertaining. There’s been ample evidence of that through four regular season games. Through the first three games Kentucky didn’t play the shutdown defense the Cats are clearly capable of, but after a pep talk from Calipari, they showed their vast potential on both ends of the court Saturday afternoon in a 92-63 win over a decent Rider Broncs team.

Kentucky improved to 4-0 heading into the third round of the Cancun Challenge. Next up is Cleveland State Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in Cancun.

Wall is simply breathtaking to behold on a basketball court. Whether he’s in transition with the ball – transition he often creates out of nothing – or blocking a shot on the defensive end, the freshman from Raleigh, N.C., deserves his lofty billing. Have you ever seen a player with a quicker first step? Or second step, or third step, or...

How do you stop Wall?
Over and over Saturday vs. Rider I watched Wall flying down court with some befuddled defender trying to make a stand, and I’d pity the poor defender. What a feeling it must be to see Wall coming at you. What a helpless feeling. It’s like watching a skit out of a Harlem Globetrotters game with the Washington Generals the hapless opponent.

Wall’s lightning quickness is one reason Kentucky has been able to get away with lukewarm perimeter shooting.You can pack your zone in all you want against Kentucky, but it’s still very difficult to keep Wall from penetrating, and when he penetrates, most of the time something good happens for UK.

In 35 minutes of action against (2-2) Rider, Wall had 21 points, 11 assists, six rebounds, three steals, two blocked shots and two turnovers.

Two other things impress me about Wall that I did not know when he was being recruited: A. He’s really an unselfish player. He appears to enjoy dishing to teammates as much as he does driving it inside by himself. And B. On a related note, Wall seems to genuinely love basketball. He plays with passion and joy.

There was one occasion Saturday when Wall made one of his patented, now you see him, now you don’t, drives inside for a bucket, and afterward he briefly posed for the photographers on the end line and smiled. But it didn’t come off to me as showboating or trying to belittle the opponent, it came off to me as a guy saying, “Man, this is fun.’’

And, so far at least, Wall always comes off as gracious, kind and humble when speaking to reporters off the court. Clearly he knows how great he is, but he doesn’t boast. And he appears to handle criticism well. And no doubt Calipari tossed some criticism to his players this past Thursday after Kentucky outlasted Sam Houston State 102-92 and gave up 3-pointers like a hurricane dishes out rain.

Defense improves
Rider’s Broncs shot just 31 percent from the field against Kentucky on 18 of 58, including just 4 of 17 from three-point range.
Rider coach Tommy Dempsey said afterward that some of the criticism and angst about Kentucky’s poor three-point defense was overblown.

“I know they have taken a bad rap for some of the three pointers that have gone in against them, but I watched every game and a couple of kids went nuts against them,” Dempsey said. “They hit tough, fall-away, in-your-face threes. They hit open shots (too), but you can’t expect them to not give up open shots in the course of the game, especially when they are pressing, jumping in passing lanes and trying to create offense with their defense.

“I watched the film and said to myself, ‘If we have to hit shots like that all night to stay in the game, it’s going to be a long night,’” Dempsey added. “Those were some spectacular performances (by players from Sam Houston State and Miami, Ohio), and I don’t think it was strictly a product of Kentucky not playing defense. But, I did think they looked better today. They were active, and their big kids were aggressive guarding the perimeter.”

‘Big kids’ get the job done
Dempsey referred to UK’s ‘big kids’ trio of Patterson and freshmen DeMarcus Cousins and Daniel Orton. And, indeed, aggressive is a good way to refer to the efforts of those three big guys on Saturday. I would only add that Patterson, Cousins and Orton did not limit their aggressiveness to the perimeter.

I recall one play, and I’m sorry but I don’t remember the Rider player, but the Rider guy drove inside and Patterson, Orton, Cousins, Perry Stevenson, or some combination thereof, swatted the ball away as the Rider player tried to shoot at least three times. Finally one of the Wildcats was whistled for a foul, and the Rider guy smiled faintly and shook his head, like he was in wonder at the magnitude of Kentucky’s long arms and athleticism.

Patterson was a monster all day, in fact, contributing 19 points and 18 rebounds in 34 minutes. Patterson appeared tentative a couple of weeks ago in the exhibition games, as if he was having trouble adjusting to Calipari’s more open style of play.
Patterson is not tentative anymore. He and Wall, in fact, look like they could form a nice building block for an NBA team right now.

The emotional Cousins had 18 points and six rebounds in just 15 minutes. Cousins needs to learn to harness his emotions better and play smarter, but he appears receptive to Calipari’s guidance, and I believe in time the 6-foot-11 Cousins will tone it down as needed and use his energy more constructively.

Orton, meanwhile, has been a revelation. He, too, looked tentative in the early games, but against Rider, the 6-10 freshman from Oklahoma City, took a big step forward in both confidence and production. He had 14 points and six boards in 23 minutes against Rider, hitting 5 of 7 from the field and 4 of 5 at the free throw line.

But more than those numbers, I liked Orton’s body language. He moved around with a lot more confidence. The only thing holding Orton back is sheer strength. He does not appear to be very strong physically, and against better competition, that’s going to hurt him this season.

Coming together
Cousins and Orton were involved in a scene at halftime that says a lot about how these young Wildcats are already both growing up and growing together.

Let Calipari tell it.

“Here is the great thing that happened today,” Calipari said. “I was going to start DeMarcus in the second half, but I asked him, and he said to let Daniel start because he had been playing so well (in the first half), and he could come off the bench.

“THAT,” Calipari said, “is a BIG STEP for us, because it means they’re starting to care about each other, and that means they are starting to be able to see that when another man is playing well, you should leave him in the game and not worry about yourself.”

Calipari has said many times, and continues to say it, that his Wildcats are “far from where they need to be” and are far, in fact, “from even being pretty good.”

Rider’s Dempsey had a good laugh about that when asked about Kentucky after the game Saturday. The Rider coach also made another pointed comment about the Wildcats’ defense, and the UK fans’ angst about that subject.

When asked straight out if Kentucky is, in fact, “pretty good,” Dempsey laughed and replied: “Sure they’re very good. What’s he (Calipari) going to say? He doesn’t want them thinking they’re any good. It’s November. If he starts telling everybody how good they are now ... that’s not what his kids need to hear.

“They need to learn how to play together and value defense,” Dempsey then added. “They have to be one of the most talented teams in the country. It’s just a matter of playing with a sense of urgency defensively. I think they took their foot off the gas here and there, but when they are engaged and start playing the big-time programs and start locking in, they are going to have a special team.

“You guys are going to like what you see as the season goes forward.”