In his first career game at Kentucky, freshman point guard John Wall wasted little time endearing himself to the Wildcat faithful. After Miami (OH) hit a game-tying three, Wall took the inbounds pass all the way up the floor and buried a step-back 15 foot jumper from the left wing with 0.5 seconds to seal the victory for Kentucky.
Wall was impressive in his first game at the college level. He was able to use his speed and explosiveness to get to the charity stripe and convert 10 of his 19 points at the line. He also showed the ability to break down the defense and get his teammates open looks which was evident by the 5 assist that he recorded. The one thing that he needs to improve on next time out is taking care of the ball. Wall committed 5 turnovers in the game, mostly in situations that he was trying to be too fancy with his dribble while trying to do too much. Overall he had a terrific first showing and did nothing to suggest that he is not the top prospect in this years draft.
Patrick Patterson recorded his 2nd straight double-double to open up his junior season. Patterson posted 17 points and 10 rebounds in the win. He also nailed 1 of the 2 three-pointers that he attempted in the game. He only attempted one three-pointer all of last season. If he can continue to show scouts that he improved his jump shot and expanded his range over the summer, it will do wonders for his draft stock.
After looking disinterested during the first 30 minutes of the game, Kentucky big man DeMarcus Cousins received a very animated lecture on the bench from Head Coach John Calipari and Assistant Rod Strickland. As soon as they put him back in the game about midway through the 2nd half he came alive and started rebounding the ball and scoring some points inside. Cousins has a well chronicled past of coasting through games in High School which is one of the reasons why NBA teams are very hesitant to risk a high lottery pick on the freshman. It will be interesting to see if Cousins can consistently stay motivated during his time in Lexington.
UPDATE: Here is video of Cousins from his postgame interview with the media that Lexington Herald-Leader Columnist John Clay posted on his blog last night after the game.
The highlight was this quote from Cousins explaining what Coach Calipari told him during their talk on the bench that I mentioned above.
“Coach Cal wants me to smile more. Y’all know that story. I’m not really the type that smiles on the court. I mean, with the smiling, that’s just got to do with my body language and he felt that I had bad body language in the first half. So he said smiling would help the situation.”
Something tells me that DeMarcus is going to struggle when NBA teams assess his character during interviews either this year or next.
