We Talkin Bout Practice?
Now that the man is signed, sealed, delivered, and ours, we can move on from the wonder and get to basketball. Coach Cal was on the Jim Rome show yesterday and said he was flying to Lexington to have his first practice. I tend to believe it will be more like a tryout. There are some players on the team who I think won't stick around. If the departures from the team are anything like the recruits, we will see several members of this past season's Cats move on to other destinations. I think some players will thrive in the new system with the freedoms it provides. Galloway, Miller, Liggins, and Meeks immediately pop into my head as Calipari kind of players. I know he recruited Galloway and Liggins pretty hard when he was at Memphis, so he must like them. From what I've heard, Matthew Pilgrim has the skills to excel in the new system as well. However, there are rumblings of academic problems with both Liggins and Pilgrim. I hope that's not true. We could have a very interesting couple of weeks here as Cat fans. Who will leave? Who will come in as new recruits? There's so much excitement now. Think of where we were 2 weeks ago. We were hoping we could get to the NIT finals and questioning every move our coach made. We were watching Rick and the filthy Cards get the #1 seed in the NCAA tourney. Now everything is different. Everything is positive. We have a coach who has united the entire fan base. For several years now, even back with Tubby, the fans were divided on whether they liked the coach or not. They were divided on whether or not the system could win. I'm sure they're out there, but I haven't spoken to one fan who isn't ecstatic that we have John Calipari leading the Cats now. People are confident. Confident in his system, his ability to recruit, his ability to represent the university and the state, and his ability to lead us back to the top by winning ballgames. Confident in pretty much every category that caused so much division for most of the last decade. Plus the Cards lost:) I really believe great days are ahead.
Update: I just went to a couple of websites to get some practice updates. The team practiced for an hour and a half. They went through several drills focused on ballhandling and layups. Calipari stressed that the offense was designed to get as many layups as possible. That makes hitting layups extremely important. Apparently the Cats missed several in this practice. By the way, I'm giving you this information from the official ukathletics.com website. There was a blog written by a guy from UK media relations. Just didn't want you to think I'm quoting "joe blow" from catspause who could have made all this up. Anyway, the writer thinks Miller will flourish in Cal's system and said he looked good during the session. They will practice for a short time again tomorrow. Calipari said they must get much better at dribbling the ball. I could have told him that before practice. Could have told him about the layup missing thing too. I also saw where one guy posted on kentuckysportsradio.com that Calipari seemed to be most impressed with Liggins, Meeks, and Pilgrim. This guy said Calipari praised Miller at one point and then seemed pretty upset with him later for not being aggressive. I always thought Miller was too passive. That's all I got for now. I heard a rumor that the gay cops were planning another video. Possibly to be released this weekend. What will they talk about next? Place some ideas in the comments and I'll make sure they get to the officers.
