ATLANTA — Can the state of Kentucky win three NCAA championships in a row?
That will be a dominating storyline for much of the next year in college basketball.
The Bluegrass State now has won two straight, with Rick Pitino and Louisville cutting down the nets in 2013 and John Calipari and Kentucky winning it all in 2012.
Both teams figure to be right back in the mix in 2014, with Kentucky’s boatload of McDonald’s All-Americans likely to make them a preseason favorite in the eyes of many folks.
The Wildcats flamed out in the first round of the NIT this season, but will add at least six McDonald’s All-Americans to returning players Alex Poythress, Willie Cauley-Stein and Kyle Wiltjer.
If Andrew Wiggins, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, pulls the trigger for the Wildcats over Florida State, Kansas and North Carolina, it will be hard to pick against the Cats in 2014.
“He’s the best player in the world so I don’t know how far he can bring them,” Syracuse-bound point guard Tyler Ennis, Wiggins’ AAU teammate, told SNY.tv. “But having the best player in the world is not going to hurt anybody.
Fellow Canadian Kris Joseph concurred on the impact Wiggins could make.
“You know what? Any school that he goes to, they’re gonna make that program revolve around him, you know what I mean?” the Nets forward told SNY.tv recently.
“My thing is, any school you go to, you want to leave some type of a legacy. You don’t want to go somewhere, even if it’s just for one year, where you don’t have a chance of making the tournament. It’s hard to do that with one player. You want to go to a school where you have some guys you could surround yourself with to make a great run and play great basketball.”
Louisville isn’t going anywhere, either.
The Cardinals will lose senior point guard Peyton Siva to graduation and junior big man Gorgui Dieng to the NBA Draft. It’s possible they could lose junior guard Russ Smith to the Draft, too, but Russdiculous hardly helped his stock with his 3-for-16 shooting performance in the championship game.
“I want to encourage my guys to put their name in the draft, just for the experience, whether they go or not,” Pitino said.
Louisville brings in junior college point guard Chris Jones to replace Siva, and adds three other recruits, too.
They will likely return forwards Luke Hancock, the MOP of the Final Four; Chane Behanan, he of the 15 points and 13 boards in the championship game; and stud freshman Montrezl Harrell, who came up huge in the Big East Tournament.
Sophomore Kevin Ware hopes to come back healthy from his gruesome leg injury, and sophomore Wayne Blackshear figures to have an even bigger role next year.
Once again, Kentucky and Louisville figure to be contrasting examples of how to put a team together.
The Wildcats will be loaded with one-and-dones as Calipari shoots for his second title in three years, while Pitino will have another experienced team of upperclassmen as he seeks his second title in a row and third overall.
“Well, for us to win this national championship truly a blessing from God,” Siva said in response to a question about how it felt to follow Kentucky’s win with one of their own. “We don’t look at it as who won it last year. We’re living in the present. We got this win for our team.
“I told somebody earlier, this is really what a team is. This is really what college basketball is about, a group of guys who are like family. With Kevin Ware going down like that, everybody rallying around him, it showed how much we love each other, that we are a family. We’re truly blessed to be here with this national championship trophy.”
And you can bet both Kentucky and Louisville will be in the hunt again a year from now when the Bluegrass State seeks its third championship in a row.
