John Calipari has a good idea what to expect from his eighth Kentucky team this season. Just don’t look for the best version of the Wildcats until at least four months.
“This team is not going to be what it is until February,” Caliper said Thursday. “I’m telling you now. I’m here watching it. Whether it’s Bam (Adebayo) and all these kids. You have a chance of starting four freshmen. What? Oh, yeah, we’re going to be — we’re the best team. We’re starting four freshmen possibly. At a minimum, I would say three freshmen.”
Although it’s nothing new for Calipari to build his team around a full circle of newcomers, his current recruiting class — Malik Monk, De’Aaron Fox, Bam Adebayo, Sacha Killeya-Jones and Wenyen Gabriel is considered by many the best freshmen group Calipari has ever assembled as coach of the Wildcats. Even better than the Anthony Davis-led class that led Kentucky to an NCAA title four years ago.
Calipari already has a handle on his team’s overall look and said the Wildcats likely will start three guards and two post players. Unlike last year, the Kentucky coach said all of his backcourt players have the ability to run the point without hesitation.
“The interesting thing is what are the combinations going to be? My guess would be three guards,” he said. “(It will be) a little different than the three guards we played last year, but different, but three guards. At times we may go big with 6-foot-10, 6-10, 6-10, and a couple guards who are 6-4.”
A year ago, it was Tyler Ulis who steered the Kentucky offense. This year, multiple players — Fox, Monk and Isaiah Briscoe and Dominique Hawkins — will share the ball handling duties, giving Calipari more options in the backcourt and on the perimeter.
“This team will probably have three guys having the ball, and we’ll play off them,” he said. “One may have it more, but the other two are going to have it a significant amount of time. So that makes it different. Every team (os different and ) that’s the fun thing about this. I mean, literally, every year is a different group, and you have to figure out how you’re going to play.”
What Calipari does know is the Wildcats will be quicker than last year’s squad and will have the ability to get up and down the court at a faster rate and hopes it will lead to more scoring opportunities in transition and quicker adjustments on defense.
“I say we should be a fast team,” he said. “Our bigs are fast. Our guards are fast. An efficient team, I don’t know yet. An execution team, we don’t have anything in to execute yet right now. But hopefully, we will be.”
A big question mark lies within the team’s outside shooting, an issue that carries over from last season. Calipari isn’t sure about what to expect from beyond the arc and said it’s “too early” to make a fair assessment.
“It could be (our best shooting team) — may not be,” he said. (It) may end up being the best shooting team I’ve had. There have been teams that they told this team wouldn’t shoot the ball well, and we did. We shot the ball fine. If you remember at the beginning of last year, Tyler Ulis didn’t shoot the ball well. We had games where we were like, holy cow, I hope he can make some shots. And by the end, he and Jamal (Murray) ended up giving us two guys that could shoot 40 percent from the 3.”
Aside from the unknown, Calipari said defense will be the team’s main staple.
“I’m going to be disappointed if in February this isn’t the best defensive team, but right now we don’t know the terminology,” he said.
For now, Calipari is just watching his team grow.
“You’ve got guys that they’re so young that it’s like putting water on a flower,” he said. “They just start to blossom.”
Keith Taylor is a senior sports writer for KyForward, where he primarily covers University of Kentucky sports. Reach him at keith.taylor@kyforward.com or @keithtaylor21 on Twitter