Breaking Down Just How Good Kentucky Basketball Can Be in 2014-15

Hype is a volatile element in college basketball. It can propel programs to success or pressure them into mediocrity.

With the Kentucky Wildcats, it has become an inevitable component that comes with being a blue-blood program, and this year is no different.

Expectations are perhaps higher than ever for head coach John Calipari and his team for the upcoming season, and it’s hard to hush down the noise surrounding this year’s Wildcats when there are nine former McDonald’s All-Americans on the roster. 

So the question now is no longer about whether the Wildcats will be a good team, but just how good of a team can they be?

Per USA Today (h/t ESPN.com's Myron Medcalf), Larry Brown, the Hall of Famer and head coach for SMU, claimed Kentucky’s roster is so deep that it can make up both the No. 1 and No. 2 team in the country and go 45-0.

Meanwhile, Chris Briggs, the head coach for a Georgetown College team that lost to Kentucky by the score of 121-52 in exhibition, said in a postgame press conference that the Wildcats “could have beaten some NBA teams” with the type of performance they put up against his team.

Calipari knows how good his team is, but he also knows these comparisons can be blown out of proportion.

No one knows if Kentucky can top an NBA team, and frankly, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that does is if the Kentucky can top every other team in college. And by the way things look, it certainly can.

The sky is the limit this year for the Wildcats. How to get there, though, is what they need to figure out. Here is a look at what they have to work with.

Backcourt

When the Harrison twins made the surprising decision to return to Lexington for their sophomore seasons, they immediately put Kentucky back into the title talk again. 

Andrew, the point guard, is looking to shake off an inconsistent freshman season, and by dropping some weight and improving his overall game, he is poised to do just that.

As for Aaron, the shooting guard who broke the hearts of Louisville, Michigan and Wisconsin with his clutch shots during last year’s NCAA tournament, he joined his brother in the dieting and should be able to provide the just the same (if not better) type of production this season. 

Below are the highlights from Kentucky’s Blue-White scrimmage game last month, and they offer just some glimpses of what the twins are capable of doing.

As good as the Harrison twins are, Calipari will still need some depth to support them as well. The freshmen Tyler Ulis and Devin Booker should give the Wildcats just that. 

Ulis, though a diminutive guard at 5’9”, is an excellent passer with a decent shooting touch and relentless defensive effort. He should provide some energy and be a spark plug for Kentucky’s second unit if Calipari indeed decides to stick with the platoon system.

Booker was touted as one of the best shooters in his recruiting class, and he can provide the outside scoring that Kentucky lacked for most parts of last season. With the Wildcats also lacking a true wing player, Booker can be moved around with his 6’6” height and give Calipari some options as well.

Not to be forgotten in the backcourt is sophomore Dominique Hawkins, who is capable of shutting down any player on the defensive end whenever Calipari asks him to.

Together, the five guards give the Wildcats everything a team needs in the backcourt to be a successful team. Expect Kentucky to dictate the pace of every game because of this advantage.

Frontcourt 

With seven players listed at 6’8” or taller, Kentucky undoubtedly has the best size out of any team in the country. 

Dakari Johnson and Willie Cauley-Stein top that list as a pair of 7-footers, and that allows Calipari to experiment with plenty of different rotations.

Cauley-Stein is one of the best rim protectors in the country (2.9 BPG last year), and Johnson should slowly but surely develop into one as well with an increase in minutes this season.

As for the power forward position, Calipari will have the luxury of trying out a couple of potential All-Americans in Karl-Anthony Towns and Trey Lyles.

Alex Poythress, the 6’8” junior, can be thrown in the mix as well, but the heights of Towns (6’11”) and Lyles (6’10”) give Kentucky the best size advantage at the 4.

Towns has perhaps the most complete skill set out of any power forward in the country. He has guard-like ball-handling skills to go along with a smooth shooting touch that can stretch the opposing defense and score from anywhere on the court.

Lyles has a similar type of game but holds an edge down low with his ability to score from the post. Together, these two can complement either Johnson or Cauley-Stein and create an ideal offense-defense combination that is hard to match.

The only position of concern for Kentucky this year is perhaps who Calipari will insert at the wing. He could go with Poythress, a player who is better suited at the 4, or the unproven Marcus Lee and Derek Willis, both of whom did not get much playing time last season as freshmen.

In any regard, Calipari has plenty of options to play around with, but he needs to find a way to create a good team chemistry, especially when dealing with a platoon system, and ensure his players are happy with their given minutes and roles on the team.

After all, these are some former McDonald’s All-Americans who need to adjust to playing with this amount of talent surrounding them. Calipari needs to make sure his players understand these are not two five-men rotations that happen to play on the same team, but 10 to 12 men playing together to find the best way to utilize their talents to win.

Schedule 

Kentucky could have easily planned an easy nonconference schedule to steamroll its competition. But Calipari is a competitor, and he wants some early tests for his talented team to see what it would take to remain the last-team standing come early April.

That being said, Kentucky has perhaps the toughest nonconference schedule out of any team in the country this season, with games against Kansas, Texas, UNC, UCLA and Louisville circled on its ledger.

How the Wildcats fare during nonconference play will tell a lot about this team, and should the team undergo some adjustments, those will need to happen in a hurry.

Conclusion 

No matter what Calipari said about the praises and hypes surrounding his team, this year’s Wildcats are destined to become national champions.

Some may wonder if they can go undefeated, but that would just be a caveat to what this team can ultimately accomplish.

The Wildcats can easily trip up during their nonconference schedule or stumble against Florida in SEC play, but all that matters is for them to get to Indianapolis for the Final Four this season and have a chance to bring home title No. 9. 

Records won’t mean anything when you bring home a national title—just ask Connecticut. 

There have been three times Kentucky has been ranked at No. 1 to begin a season (1980-81, 1995-96 and 2013-14), but only once did it finish at the same spot at the end of the season (1996).

Championships aren’t won on paper nor through hype, but this year’s Wildcats possess an amount of talent that is unrivaled by any other program.

Of course, college basketball is an unpredictable sport, and anything can happen come tournament time. But at this very moment it is hard to argue against the potential of this year’s Kentucky team and say there is a better team positioned to win the national championship.