ALLoverCANE
Recruit
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 1,447
It's been many, many years since Calipari maximized his talent.The KenPom thing was a joke more than anything since it's June and we're quoting CBB team rankings. You can't really start hanging your hat on off-season KenPom or Bart Torvik rankings...especially with how different our roster is gonna look.
Arky's gonna be better than you're thinking, I believe. Cal always tends to have big positive impacts early on when he arrives somewhere, and he did bring a lot of that UK roster/recruiting class with him (and whatever the knocks on Cal are, it's not recruiting, so those guys are talented), and they're adding Aidoo at C from Tennessee and Johnell Davis from FAU - both really solid pieces. One guy that followed Cal from UK as a recruit is Karter Knox as well and I'd project him to be threatening for PT on the wing.
Cal ain't gonna roll his UK squad from last season out on the floor that blasted us...sure. But he's not gonna have a team of scrubs either. DJ Wagner sure ain't a scrub. Neither are Thiero and Ivisic...the latter wasn't eligible yet when we played otherwise he'd a have probably logged some minutes/stats against us in the blowout last season. UK fans were super high on him.
And preseason analytics are every bit as predictive as preseason human prognosticators. Compare how preseason Kenpom typically fares vs the preseason AP poll.
I'm not saying they're going to be terrible. I think they'll make the tournament. But I think we'll make the tournament too, we'll be at home, and I don't think they'll be an elite team right out of the gate. It seems unreasonable to conclude that we'll be heavy underdogs in that game.