Depth An Issue For Young Cats

Let me first say that I thought UK's loss to North Carolina was a very entertaining game. It had a March Madness feel, despite the sloppiness, and overall the entire 40 minutes were plenty intense. Clark and Gus were pouring it onto their CBS microphones pretty thick.

The UNC crowd was quite vocal in their support the wrong shade of blue, and it all came down to the wire and some great free throw shooting by the Tar Heels at the end. It was a much better college basketball game-- in a frantic, back and forth way, than you might normally see on the first weekend in December.

Sure, the loss stings. You never want to have to learn through losing. Especially to those guys.

But what I have as a real concern for UK right now, and it's no secret to anybody that follows the team, is simply frontcourt depth. Josh Harrellson played 21 over-performing defensive minutes but eventually fouled out in trying to contain Tyler Zeller today. Likewise, Eloy Vargas and Terrence Jones were eventually disqualified via personals (perhaps mercifully in the case of Jones, who did not seem to have his A, B, or even C game at the Dean Dome.)

Being pessimistic about the Kanter situation, and knowing that Daniel Orton, his family, and everybody else obviously has to deal with Daniel's (ill-advised?) decision to enter the NBA draft, (why was that again?) I figure that Kentucky is going to have to find some methods to keep its "bigs" on the court.

For starters, Josh especially needs to learn the difference between good fouls and bad. His fifth was an attempt to deny an entry pass in the waning minutes of the game, in a situation where Zeller was not exactly established way down on the block. Better for Josh to not try and reach over top in that particular situation, and just play straight up "D" after the catch. Don't give the ref a chance to call that one....and that goes double knowing that you've already got four.

Crazy as it sounds, I think UK also needs to just spread the fouls around a little more when facing teams with size. Doron Lamb logged 32 minutes, and played a tremendous game-- especially scoring the ball-- but he didn't commit a single foul. Usually a guy would accidentally pick up one or two just by playing solid defense. No, I'm not implying that you want a guy to just hack it up for the sake of hacking, but the Cats don't have the luxury this season of just running another 6'9" guy out there like Perry Stevenson to absorb some contact.

I really believe the guards are going to have to help out and double down more when it's necessary. UNC was only 1 for 11 from 3-point land, so it's not like the Cats were asking for a bunch of trouble by selectively abandoning the perimeter. Pick your spots and help out down low, backcourt. They will occasionally need the assistance.

But truly, another big part of the answer is that the Cats are going to have to go small for larger stretches than Coach Cal may prefer. That's where Kentucky's more talented players are anyway, and the current roster simply has more guys at the 1, 2, and 3 spots. I'm sure Cal can strategize for some extended periods of uptempo, pressing, dribble-drive type basketball. The season looks to demand it.

Terrence Jones has already had several much better days in his brief UK career, and will surely have many more. Josh/Jorts will give you everything that he can, including some questionable facial hair. And Vargas will develop into a solid contributor; I'm confident of that as well. But if you want to give yourself a mini-panic attack as a UK fan, imagine one of those guys going down with an injury for a few weeks, or missing a big chunk of the conference schedule. Depth is a concern, isn't it?