Kentucky Basketball: Mid-Season Stock Watch for Wildcats' Stars

With the impressive win at Louisville still fresh in our memories, Kentucky is in the middle of a 10-day break before jumping into the SEC slate. It's a chance for the Wildcats to recharge their batteries, and it also serves as a great opportunity to assess how things are going.

The 13-0 record is a pretty strong indicator of Kentucky's performance as a team, especially when that includes wins over four ranked teams, three of whom were sixth or better at the time.

But what about from an individual standpoint?

Kentucky's platoon system has drawn a lot of attention, yet it seems to have made it so the inevitable ups and downs that players go through during a season come off as unimportant. Not everyone is playing their best at this point, and some are having particularly bad years so far.

Here's our midseason stock report for each of the Wildcats' nine most-used players.

Devin Booker

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Stock: Rising

Devin Booker hasn't started a game yet, but he's a perfect example of how the platoon scenario pretty much eliminates the importance of being one of the first five players on the court.

The freshman is part of the second unit but is third on Kentucky in scoring, at 9.9 points per game.

The 6'6" guard has proven to be the Wildcats' best three-point shooting option, hitting 23 of 50 this year. He's playing 18.9 minutes per game, but rather than just camp out beyond the arc he's mixing it up and become a key option in the transition game, as well.

Booker has far outplayed sophomore Andrew Harrison, who starts at the 2, yet not being in the lineup at tip hasn't affected his performance one bit.

Willie Cauley-Stein

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Stock: Rising

Though he's been an important part of Kentucky longer than anyone else involved on this year's roster, Willie Cauley-Stein is playing at another level this season.

Because of that, he's moved up the mock draft charts into a potential lottery selection.

The 7'0" junior has been, far and away, the Wildcats' best and most complete player in 2014-15. This isn't just because he's the only upperclassman (now that fellow junior Alex Poythress is out for the year with a knee injury), but because he's contributing to every facet of the game.

Cauley-Stein is second on the team in scoring (10.1 points per game) but is shooting a team-best 60.7 percent from the field. In addition, he's averaging 6.6 rebounds per game and has the most steals (24)—as well as 22 blocked shots.

More than anything, though, Cauley-Stein has consistently been the guy who's made the big play whenever needed.

Aaron Harrison

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Stock: Falling

Aaron Harrison has one of the worst shooting percentages on the team, yet he is Kentucky's leading scorer. It helps that the 6'6" sophomore guard has taken more shots than anyone else, and it's not even close.

Harrison has started every game of his Kentucky career, yet his performance this year has dropped off considerably from last season. He's only making 37 percent of his field goals and just 27.3 percent from three-point range, not showing any of the clutch play that helped the Wildcats reach the title game in 2013-14.

With Devin Booker rising in his role as the backup shooting guard, Harrison will need to get better if he doesn't want to keep losing minutes. In Saturday's win over Louisville, Booker played two minutes more than Harrison.

Andrew Harrison

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Stock: Falling

Similar to his twin brother, Andrew Harrison isn't performing as well this season as he did during his freshman year. And with how well Tyler Ulis has looked so far, he could be in serious risk of losing court time if things don't pick up.

The 6'6" sophomore guard is shooting a team-low 36.7 percent from the field, and against Louisville he played only 20 minutes and made 1 of 6 shots. He contributed four assists, but so did Trey Lyles, and that's been a season-long issue for him.

Harrison averages 4.1 assists per game, but his assist-to-turnover ratio (1.86-to-1) isn't what you want from a point guard.

Dakari Johnson

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Stock: Rising

Dakari Johnson isn't the fastest, strongest or most talented at his position.

In fact, the 7'0" sophomore center might be at the bottom end of all of those categories compared to the rest of Kentucky's big men, but none of them work as hard as him to do what he does well.

For Johnson, that's scrapping. He's in there to get rebounds, make putbacks and get in the way in the paint on defense. And he's done that successfully this season, sitting with solid averages of 8.3 points and 6.1 rebounds in 18.1 minutes per game.

Johnson logged an amazing nine rebounds in 11 minutes against Louisville, and while he's taken fewer shots of late, he's still hitting 60.3 percent from the field.

Marcus Lee

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Stock: Falling

Marcus Lee is still a part of Kentucky's platoon/rotation, but that might not last much longer.

If coach John Calipari were to trim from his current lineup of nine main players, the 6'9" sophomore seems the most likely candidate to sit more.

Lee plays only 13.7 minutes per game, and while that is more than twice what he had last season, he's still hardly contributing. Lee averages 3.2 points and 3.5 rebounds, though he has made 12 of his last 13 shots since most all of his attempts are dunks or putbacks.

Trey Lyles

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Stock: Rising

Trey Lyles replaced Alex Poythress in the starting lineup after Poythress was lost for the rest of the season with a knee injury. In those three starts, the 6'10" freshman has performed similarly to how he did when he was part of the second unit of platooning players, which is exactly what Kentucky needed.

Lyles hasn't had many hiccups to this point, nor has he had any particularly dominant games.

His top-scoring efforts were in the first two contests of the year—against Grand Canyon and Buffalo, when he went for 14 and 12 points, respectively—but for the season he's averaging a solid 7.8 points and 5.8 rebounds per game.

Karl-Anthony Towns

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Stock: Rising

The only freshman to be in the starting lineup all season, Karl-Anthony Towns has lived up to his billing.

Despite playing a similar position to Willie Cauley-Stein, he's made it possible for both to be on the court together and both be effective—and he's holding his own quite well.

The 6'11" Towns has been strong on both ends of the court, averaging 8.2 points and 6.8 rebounds while also leading the team with 31 blocked shots.

He's had his ups and downs—and in the past few weeks has struggled with his shot (he's 8 of 20 from the field in the past four games, and he didn't take a shot against North Carolina)—but he still makes his presence known on the defensive end.

Towns' numbers don't show his true value as much as how coveted he is by NBA scouts. Of all the players on Kentucky's roster, he's the one who figures to be drafted highest, currently projected to go No. 3 overall via NBADraft.net.

Tyler Ulis

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Stock: Rising

Of all of Kentucky's heralded players, Tyler Ulis is the one who doesn't fit the same mold. Yet because he is different from the rest of the lot is what makes what he's done so far as a freshman so much more enjoyable to watch.

The generously listed 5'9" guard is making a hard push to usurp Andrew Harrison as the team's top point guard, and with his ability to disrupt on defense while also run the offense in a more efficient manner, he'll continue to see his playing time increase.

Ulis played a career-high 26 minutes against Louisville, making 5 of 8 shots for a career-best 14 points.

For the year, he is averaging 5.8 points and 3.7 assists per game, while shooting 51.1 percent overall and 52.2 percent from three-point range.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.