The John Calipari era begins on Friday night for the Kentucky Wildcats as they host a Morehead State team coming off of an NCAA Tournament appearance. Morehead returns 4 starters from that team, including junior Kenneth Faried who is the top rebounder in the country (13.0 per game) returning. Faried is the Preseason Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year, and another Morehead State player is on the first-team All-OVC in Maze Stallworth.
In the offseason, Billy Gillispie was fired as the head coach and John Calipari was brought in, and with him he brought the nations' #1 recruiting class, and one of the top recruiting classes of all time. However, the centerpiece of that recruiting class will be watching from the sidelines as John Wall is suspended for the game due to benefits received from his AAU coach, who had previously been classified as an agent.
Similar to a quarterback in football, the Point Guard has the ball every possession and must make critical decisions. In Kentucky's first exhibition game, when John Wall was suspended, the team turned the ball over 23 times with the majority of them errors in decision making against an undersized team. They only turned the ball over 12 times with John Wall running the show in the 2nd exhibition game. While they did have their way with both exhibition opponents, neither team provided any kind of challenge and Kentucky appears to be riding high coming off two huge victories in their exhibition tune-ups.
With the team learning an entirely new offense (dribble drive motion) and returning only 6 scholarship players and 6 incoming players, and playing without the nations #1 recruit, I like Morehead State to cover the 20.5 points on Friday night. This is an experienced mid-major and they were picked to win the OVC this year. The team picked 2nd in the conference, Murray State, went out to top 15 California and had a dog fight before eventually losing by 5 points. I think Morehead State will be able to hang around long enough and will keep the game in the 10 to 20 point range in the 2nd half. Morehead State lost by 20 to Louisville in the NCAA Tournament last year, when Louisville was the #1 overall seed, and returns 4 starters. I think the main angle in this game will be the fact that Morehead knows their offense inside and out, while Kentucky is constantly making mistakes in the new offense, especially without their point guard.
Kentucky is also fighting the injury bug with PG Eric Bledsoe and C Daniel Orton both banged up. Both are expected to play, however.
YTD: 0-0 (0.00)