Cats Take Cal's Advice, Enter Draft

Today saw many potential NBA first rounders enter their name into the draft. Evan Turner, Xavier Henry, Lance Stephenson and Jordan Crawford were some of the players to throw their hat in the ring. More importantly for UK fans, all five UK players with first round potential made things official. John Wall, Demarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson, Eric Bledsoe, and Daniel Orton all took the advice of Coach Calipari and are going to test the draft process.

Good luck fellas. I don't understand the 'Sky is Falling' crowd who see this as a sign that Calipari won't get the job done here at Kentucky. This season put UK back on the map, mostly because of the efforts of these four one and done players. The way I see it, we were a consistent three point threat (Jodie Meeks) away from a National Championship. Give Calipari time to target players that fit his system, and sit back and watch the wins pile up. It is that simple. We are going to reload, so I don't get the hand wringing over these guys deciding to enter the draft.

If anything, it is going to be a selling point for Calipari. If you have noticed, he has talked about having five potential first round picks every time a microphone or camera was around. That isn't going to change. Calipari is a salesmen at heart, and he is going to be selling this to every blue chip prospect that he goes after.

I tend to look at the bright side of life, and I only see this as a positive. As I have talked about on this site in the past, the NBA lockout looms large in all of this. I don't know if Bledsoe and Orton would normally be one and done's, but the uncertain future in the NBA is another reason for them to go ahead and start the clock on their professional career's. This year is the exception, and not the rule. The relatively weak roster allowed more playing time for somebody like Bledsoe to showcase his talent than he might normally get. Also, given time to evaluate where recruits stand, Calipari might not have recruited somebody like Orton that was obviously hell bent on getting to the pro's ASAP. Orton was pretty clear all along he was going to the NBA the first chance he got, but we weren't in a situation to be picky with our roster this time last year.

We are going to have a lot of players leave school early under Calipari, but not to the degree we see this year. Just sit back, and watch Calipari do his thing. We are going to land a Top Three recruiting class this year, and should still have some talented players with a year under Calipari under their belts. We are going to start landing stud recruits sooner in the recruiting process, and we will be able to identify guys that will fit the system and be around for more than one season. The sky isn't falling, (although it is pretty nasty in far Western Kentucky right now.)

Expect more news and views on the roster situation as more details become available.