The Blue/White game was this past weekend. For some post-public-practice analysis, check out A Sea of Blue, Brett Dawson’s Blog, and KSR. And be sure to review Part the First for info about Shagari, Preston and Ravi. After the jump, uh, everybody else who’s gone.
Sorry this post is so long, but I do have 5 people to talk about.
Rajon Rondo — Drafted by Boston Celtics
Rondo is making many fans this pro preseason, although some are not completely convinced. There was no denying Rondo’s talent during his tenure at UK. Of our well-recieved 2004 recruiting class, think about what would have happened if Rondo wasn’t on the same team or shared a room with Randolph Morris during the McD’s AA game?
We will never know the truth about everything that went on with Team Turmoil last year. What we all saw publicly was Rondo’s frustration on the court. Running the “screw this, I’m going to drive” offense too much lead to Rondo’s defenders playing him 5 or 6 feet in front of him. Some wonder if Tubby’s inside-outside offense was limiting Rondo, but honestly, Tubby ran a lot of up-tempo and pressing offensive sets last year, which still didn’t seem to consistantly work. There were plenty of times that Rondo “checked out” of the game; like standing around at the top of the key watching the other players run the set. The bottom line is that because of all the chemistry problems (which Tubby owes a partial responsibilty), Rondo didn’t play to his potential. That’s not how I wanted this talented young man to end his tenure with UK.
Who Fills His Shoes — Ramel Bradley seems to be the main point guard. The good thing about Ramel is that he’s got that streetball on-court confidence. The bad news is that he has no problems with shooting the ball at every opportunity. If Bradley can play his role in the offense this season, UK will have a much better offensive output. Oh, and I really hope Derrick Jasper gets some good minutes.
Rekalin Sims — Transferred to Fresno State
Sims transferred in, started a few times, had a monster game against Iowa, and then faded in the stretch, scoring only 24 points in his last 18 games. When Tubby moved him up to the 2nd or 3rd option on offensive sets, it seemed that he lost his touch. I distinctly remember a stretch of time where Sims couldn’t buy a bucket in the paint. Perhaps Sims was having difficulty getting used to the speed and strength of Division-I Forwards. Perhaps Sims was caught up within the chemistry issues.
Of course, he hurt his back during the season. In December he averaged 19 minutes a game, but in February Rekalin averaged 4 minutes — he had all of 24 minutes over the course of 6 games. (Check out his CBS Sportsline.com profile for the numbers.) Let’s hope that he’s now healthy and will be ready to contribute to the Bulldogs next season.
Who Fills His Shoes — Honestly, I thought the role of “hard-working forward who is supposed to have a nice shooting touch” was taken by Sheray Thomas. Sheray has had a lot of ups and downs during his time, and he seems ready to show the fans what he calls “the real Sheray“.
Patrick Sparks — Graduated
Patrick reminded me of my Uncle Bob. When I’d get my doughy butt off the couch, I would go over to Uncle Bob’s to play basketball with my cousins. Bob used to start in high school, but he was around 5′ 7″ and wasn’t exactly talented enough to get to college. So he had created several tricks custom tailored to his assets, speed and shooting touch. Uncle Bob would drop these behind-the-defender’s-back finger rolls from 6 or 7 feet out.
Patrick was the same way. He had some nice tricks around the basket and behind the arc (what range!) that helped him stay competitive for the Cats. But Patrick had some problems with defense. It was a major liability to the team in the first half of the season, but he did well to keep working on it. There was the Tennessee game where he played some good defense, and supposedly it was so magnanimous that Patrick threw a chair in Knight-ish Celebration. But even after that, it seemed like Patrick was just too limited to challenge a jumpshot.
Who Fills His Shoes — Patrick the Point Guard will be handled by Bradley. Patrick the Offensive Juggernaut will become Joe Crawford the Offensive Juggernaut. By the way, Patrick will get you a good deal on a Dodge Ram if you go see him.
Brandon Stockton — Graduated
To many UK Fans, Brandon Stockton was like Ned Flanders: they all liked him, but didn’t respect him. I remember hearing audible groans from fans when Stockton walked onto the court. The problem of his size was mostly countered by his hustle, so long as you didn’t expect Brandon to become Rondo. And Tubby rewarded Stockton’s work with a ton of playing time in February and early March, when he averaged almost 17 minutes a game. Not too shabby for the 4th-string guard.
Its too bad that Brandon’s positive attitude didn’t catch on with the other members of Team Turmoil. It impressed others who he worked with in community services.
Who Fills His Shoes — Honestly, I would hope the positive attitude would not need to be centralized into one person. I would hope the current crop of Seniors and Juniors learned from last year that they should encourage each other and to work hard.
Adam Williams — Transferred to Marshall
The next Jeff Shepard? I don’t think the next Jeff Shepard would be transferring just because he didn’t get on the court as much as he thought he should. Maybe Tubby messed up by not giving Williams the PT he so desired. Maybe Williams didn’t earn any PT. Maybe Williams didn’t get any PT because there were 7 guards in front of him, he being the only freshman and 3 others (Ravi, Sparks, Stockton) being seniors. Maybe Williams was looking for an excuse to get PT at his dad’s alma mater. We may never know the truth.
Hopefully we’ll see how good Adam is at Marshall, when Marshall plays a decent opponent. I want to see somebody who was compared to (and wanted to be like, according to his UK bio) Jeff Shep play and act like Jeff Shep.
Who Fills His Shoes — Pick a freshman. Any freshman. Tell them to go fight for Tubby’s attention in practice.