As far as favorites go, the 2014-15 version of the Kentucky basketball team isn’t exactly Mike Tyson taking on Buster Douglas or the 1980 Soviet hockey team facing Team USA for Olympic gold.
They’re still just one program that will likely end up in a field of 67 other teams in the NCAA Tournament come March.
But make no mistake, the Wildcats are favored to win their ninth NCAA championship on April 6 in Indianapolis.
Kentucky was installed as the preseason No. 1 pick in the Coaches’ Poll on Thursday, ahead of Arizona, Duke, Wisconsin and Kansas.
Coach John Calipari’s team has nine McDonald’s All-Americans.
If they were divided into two teams of six, their second team would be ranked in the Top 25, according to ESPN’s Jay Bilas.
Bovada has installed Kentucky as a 7/2 favorite to win the NCAA Tournament, with Arizona and Wisconsin both chiming in at 9/1, Tobacco Road rivals Duke and North Carolina at 12/1 and Kansas at 16/1.
Yet what makes this season especially intriguing for Calipari and the Cats– and the risk/reward so high — is that he is entering unknown territory: he plans to utilize a platoon system in which as many as 12 players see playing time.
Twelve.
“It’s an issue now if this works,” Calipari said Thursday at Kentucky’s media day. “I’m on a mission to make this work for each of these kids.”
Calipari said he knew he had to go in this direction — playing 10 or 12 guys instead of 6 or 7 — after the twins Andrew and Aaron Harrison said they were coming back to campus for their sophomore seasons.
At that point, Calipari had to call the parents of incoming freshmen guards Tyler Ulis and Devin Booker and do some damage control.
“As soon as the twins said we’re coming back, I went, oh, my gosh,” he said. “What am I going to do? Then I had to call the freshmen parents and those kids to tell them I’ve got your back. You just keep training. This is going to work.”
While BBN will support Calipari no matter what, this platoon idea may turn out to be a lose/lose proposition on some fronts.
If Kentucky wins the NCAA Tournament next April using the platoon system, his haters will roll out their familiar retorts.
“Calipari had the best players, he had nine McDonald’s All-Americans, of course he should win.”
“Calipari doesn’t develop players, he can only recruit.”
“He is a mercenary with no regard for education.”
“I could could win an NCAA title with the talent Kentucky had.”
Go on Twitter right now, and you’ll find something resembling these comments.
They turn up just about every day.
But what if Calipari successfully employs this platoon system, manages not to royally piss off any of his players — or their families — and Kentucky ends up winning?
That would be something unprecedented.
Something impressive indeed.
Maybe some of the haters would give him some credit for his coaching and people skills if that were to happen.
“I’m just on a mission to make it work because I’m hearing all the reasons you can’t do it,” Calipari said. “You can’t do this, that, and the issue for our guys is can they keep the clutter away?”
A master motivator, Calipari already has his narrative prepared.
It’s his team, his guys, against the media, against the people saying it can’t work.
“Jay Bilas gave a great talk to our guys about understand that it’s coming,” Calipari said. “He said we in the media, that’s what we do. So what we’re going to do is pit you against him. Who is better? He should be playing, he’s not. Well, why would these three say you’re better and these three say he’s better. What about this big guy versus that big guy? What about if he was only doing this? Oh, he needs to play 30 minutes to show his game. It’s coming.
“Jay Bilas talked to them. If they can’t get through to the players and break those guys down, they’ll try to go to the parents. We have guys in here doing that, calling the parents and saying what do you think? To try to get that. It’s all what we’re going to have to deal with, and they know that.”
It’s early, not a single game has been played yet in the regular season, but his players are already supporting the party line.
“We all came as a team, and we really agreed with it,” said freshman 7-footer Karl Towns from St. Joe’s-Metuchen, a projected top-5 pick in the NBA Draft. “We really liked it. At the end of the day we’re all here to just try to do everything we can to try to win as many games as possible.”
“I see they’re going to buy in because of the way they see that Coach actually cares about us, wants the best for us, and wants to win,” Aaron Harrison said. “Not many people care about you as much as Coach does so once you see someone that cares about you so much, you want buy into what he does.”
Of course, it’s a long season and things may change.
They probably will.
Egos will be bruised.
Playing time will be less for some and more for others.
Calipari knows that a couple guys on his team may end up separating themselves from the pack and thus end up deserving more playing time. Clippers coach Doc Rivers told him that would be his primary challenge.
“This isn’t communism, so if one group deserves to play a little bit more, they will,” he said. “It’s not communism. If two guys separate themselves and need to get more minutes because you all look and say that kid is so good, he needs more minutes, it’s not communism, they’ll get more minutes. But we’re going to figure that out as we go.”
It should be fascinating to watch it all play out.
The risk/reward for Calipari and Kentucky has never been higher.
