A Few Words on Duke vs. Kentucky

[J.Jennings]

According to Drew Franklin, RJ Barrett has been talking trash and saying they're going to kill us.

They not killing jack crap , to be nice about it. This Kentucky team going to be damn near flawless when it's all said and done, i actually believe that. Different group this year, entirely different feel, no elephants in the room in my opinion.......

[Joneslab]

Marques Bolden did not score a single point on the Canada trip.

[Blue Heaven]

Marques Bolden did not score a single point on the Canada trip.

Is that going to be their achilles heel? There 5 spot is rather weak.

In hindsight I am glad we didn't get Bolden.

[Blue Heaven]

Zion is better than I thought he was. Watched his Canda highlight videos and he is a bully in a good way. I have never seen someone so big get off the floor so fast. His second jump is as impressive as his initial leap. You gotta play him to his left but je can go right if need be. The "competition" was junk though, much moreso than our opponents IMO. It seemed nobody was even trying to guard him.

[Joneslab]

If Zion can shoot it he'll be an All-American.

Still not sure if he can. You can't really take too much from the Canada games because of that competition, but after that first game where he went 3-4 he missed every other three he shot.

As we've seen with players like Diallo and others at UK, if you can't shoot the ball the game is really hard at the D1 level. And the reports from people who've stood close to Williamson say he's undersized for his position.

But if you're that explosive, that powerful, it may not matter. He'll have some massive games simply because he just bull through people. And he'll jump over quite a few that he can't bully.

(He won't bull through anybody on our front line.)

[85 Fly]

After watching our summer games I feel real good (a lot more confident than last years team...I was holding my breath every game) about this group. We got work to do: Hagans needs to work on shooting, good defensive player hopefully won't be Briscoe 2.0. Travis needs time to get use to our system/gel/chemistry but he is a beast on the boards! The glimpse of Montgomery looks good. Proud of Richards and Washington, you can tell they've been in the lab and are more comfortable; they made the right decision coming back. Lets see what another year does for Green. Herro and Johnson are showing what I luved about their HS game. Quick I'm seeing potential.
Can someone tell me if Baker is going to see the floor this season? I hear (haven't seen) he's a pretty good shooter but right now this is lookin like a Vanderbilt situation!

Feeling good about the opportunity for our team to go far this season. I decided to scout out the competition so I went on YouTube and watched all of the Duke in Canada games. None of the other contenders that analyst are projecting to be in the final four (KU, Gonzaga) played summer games. What I took away from the Duke games: RJB will be a problem if we don't defend like we didn't during USA vs Canada champ game...gotta slow him down. Everyone will see Reddish is the best all around scorer on the team but RJB receives most of the hype because of his style of play. Zion is going to have to be Washington's assignment. Zion has been in the lab expanding his game. Senior year in HS he was only doing clean up work around the rim and dunking he has since added a jump shot and if he continues working on the 3point shot then he will definitely be a load...

I'm excited to get the season started...looking forward to Oct glimpse to see how the guys are coming along. Pre-season media has UK, KU, Duke, Gonzaga, Tenn to go far but don't sleep on Nevada, Villanova, MSU.