The future’s bright for UK

From November 11th when they beat Marist by 50 points, 108-58. I had the Kentucky Wildcats winning this year’s NCAA title.

They have too good a team for anybody to really compete because when they turn it on, there’s no stopping them. Now they may not have gone 32-1 like Murray State did, but look who’s in their conference; Florida, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Arkansas and they had to play Kansas and North Carolina both of whom they beat, and after their first loss (8-1) they went 24-0, the biggest win coming against Georgia by 30 points.

Now lets take a look at their starting 5, their backcourt of Marquis Teague and Doron Lamb is unmatched in the whole of college basketball. There may be players better than those two but together, their high above everyone else. Their front court of Terrence Jones and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is ridiculous, both players have the potential to be lottery picks, only maybe North Carolina can compete with John Henson, Harrison Barnes and Tyler Zellar. Bring in the superstar Anthony Davis, who has lit the college seen alight this season. In one of his high school games he finished with 32 points, 21 rebounds, 11 assists and 9 blocks (that’s 1 block away from a quadruple-double) and has averaged 14.3 points, 10.1 rebounds and 4.3 blocks in his freshman year and undoubtedly when he declares for the NBA Draft, he will 110% be the number 1 overall pick.

The NBA hasn’t had a big man to compete with Dwight Howard in the past couple of years, and if Davis puts on a bit of muscle, they should have one coming very soon.

With 4 of their 5 starters averaging double figures in PPG, and Teague only 0.4 away, you can see why their an unbelievable scoring threat and they’ve averaged 8.7 blocks per game and 6.8 steals a game. They are also a great, great defensive team not to mention their pure power and athleticism.

On their road to the Final Four, they had a fairly easy run compared to Louisville and Kansas. They played 16th seed West Kentucky and rolled them over in a 15 point win, 81-66. They then played Iowa State, which they won by 16 points, 87-71 and then they sent home 4th seed Indiana, followed by 3rd seed Baylor, both whom they beat by 12 points.

They now face 4th seed Louisville who I don’t think has enough size and defensive threat as someone like Baylor or Indiana do. They did overturn a number 1 seeded Michigan State side though (and a lowly seeded Florida). I then think Ohio will beat Kansas, setting up an Ohio State – Kentucky final, which I see Kentucky taking because they have more of an all round team. Whereas Ohio are more of an inside threat but do have the talented William Buford on the perimeter.

For me Kentucky are very deserving National Champions.

At the end of the season they only lose Eloy Vargas as a senior, but then they could also lose all of their starting 5, Anthony Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, Marquis Teague and Doron Lamb to the NBA Draft. But I do believe that one or two of those players will stay, more than likely Teague and Lamb, keeping their backcourt in place.

However this isn’t the end of Kentucky’s dominance. The 2012 McDonalds game is just around the corner and the players to look out for are Amile Jefferson, Tony Parker, Alex Poythress, Archie Goodwin, Marcus Paige, Isaiah Austin, Anthony Bennett and Shabazz Muhammad. Two of which have already committed to Kentucky (Goodwin and Poythress) and another three are considering (Jefferson, Parker and Bennett). Shabazz Muhammad a 6’6 small forward who is touted as a future number 1 pick in the draft could still decide to join Kentucky. A player who you won’t see in the game is Nerlens Noel, he is in the same situation as Andre Drummond last year and was held back a class do to school grades. But he could now re-classify, meaning he’ll rejoin the 2012 class. He has considered offers from Kentucky, Syracuse and Georgetown, but Kentucky seems to be the place he wants to go. Same with Muhammad. Noel who is a 6’10 centre, maybe not as good as Davis in some respects but maybe has a little more to show on offense. He’s the better of him and Muhammad. If they did get BOTH of those two, they might just have a better team than this year, a little bit more in depth.

They’ll look abit like this:

PG – Marquis Teague / Darius Miller, SG – Doron Lamb / Archie Goodwin, SF – Shabazz Muhammad / Alex Poythress, PF – Anthony Bennett / Kyle Witjer, C – Nerlens Noel.

Without a doubt for the second season running Kentucky is going to have a beast of a team. Muhammad makes his decision on April 10th so look out for that.