Kentucky Basketball: How Will Wildcats Deal with Alex Poythress' Injury?

Alex Poythress is out for the season with a torn ACL, according to Brian Milam of WKYT News. It's a tough blow for a player who has, quite frankly, had a rough collegiate career up to this point.

But even if Poythress' stats may not jump out off the page at you (5.5 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.5 bpg), Poythress was a very important cog of the world-destroying machine that is Kentucky this season. With all of the depth the Wildcats have been blessed with, Poythress was the only honest-to-God small forward of the 10 players seeing action.

Losing Poythress means losing a great defender, first and foremost, and a player who could provide a spark from time to time with a big offensive rebound or dunk. And Poythress was actually third on the team in blocked shots. However, here is what Kentucky is not losing: an offensive threat.

So what does this mean for Kentucky moving forward? John Calipari has two options.

Abandon the Platoons

Look, I loved the platoon. I love throwing different shifts at opponents and wearing them down. I thought it was great. But it was pretty much predicated on Kentucky having 10 great players who needed time. With Poythress gone, all due respect to Derek Willis, it becomes less necessary to try to get 10 guys playing time.

Calipari was able to get away with one platoon without a legit 3. Trey Lyles is a talented, athletic individual, but that is not his pure position. That platoon gets away with it for stretches, but you can't go that way the entire game.

That means in addition to the 1-2-4-4-5 that the White Platoon was throwing out there with Poythress on the bench, Kentucky is going to have to counter with some 1-1-2-4-5 or 1-2-2-4-5 lineups as well, and that essentially means breaking up the platoon system to make that happen.

You could see Devin Booker slide in with the Harrison twins to try on that 3 spot. Or have Tyler Ulis run the point, have Andrew Harrison move over to the 2 and have Aaron Harrison try his hand at small forward. Maybe trying Aaron in a new position will be the shot in the arm he needs to break out of this funk he's been in.

Regardless, as soon as Cal starts mixing the lineups like this, the line changes stop and the platoon system dies an honorable death.

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Derek Willis Time

Even though Willis is technically Kentucky's 12th man, he's basically the next man up as far as small forwards go. So it's conceivable that if Calipari were intent on keeping his platoons together, Willis could go from 12th man to starter.

The key takeaway here is that Willis is no ordinary 12th man. He's a pretty solid basketball player and somebody that I'm not totally opposed to seeing more playing time. And, if we're being honest, he's a much bigger offensive threat than Poythress ever was.

Willis has confidence in his game and won't be shy about trying to contribute and, unlike Poythress, I won't scream at my TV when he does something other than try to dunk the ball. With Kentucky's struggles on offense lately, maybe it's not such a bad idea after all to have a scoring-minded small forward playing more/at all.

Obviously, it's a huge downgrade in the defense and rebounding game. But Kentucky has the size to make up the difference. Now maybe the Wildcats will go from being one of the greatest defensive teams of all time, per Gary Parrish of CBS Sports, to just being a really good defensive team.

Since the news hit so late Thursday night, Kentucky and Calipari are waiting until Friday to hold a press conference and possibly give some answers on the strategy moving forward. I kind of hope he keeps the platoons and just gives Willis some run. But I also wouldn't mind shaking up Aaron Harrison and seeing what he could do at the 3.

Whatever happens, I don't see this as the giant blow to Kentucky that initially it seemed like. Yes, Poythress provides some senior leadership and more than his share of great defense, but he is also Captain Inconsistent on a team that is having some consistency problems at the moment. I don't think it's necessarily addition by subtraction, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Wildcats find a way to take what they've been given and make themselves a better team.

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