Countdown to Craziness has come and gone and all that’s left is anticipation. That’s going to be cranked up if you haven’t see the official 2024-25 Hype Video. You certainly can’t gather much from a video like this but it looks great. This does not look like a team to trifle with.
The anticipation is obvious. To borrow from Dick Vitale: are you serious? Cooper Flagg, Khaman Maluach, Kon Knueppel, Isaiah Evans, Darren Harris, Patrick Ngongba? And the transfers can play too, plus Caleb Foster and Tyrese Proctor are going to be improved.
Watching them sort out roles is going to be the fun part. From here it seems obvious that Flagg, Maluach, Proctor and Foster will start and from what we’ve heard and seen, Knueppel looks like he has the fifth spot.
If that plays out, that means that Evans, Harris, Ngongba (assuming he’s healthy), Maliq Brown, Sion James and Mason Gillis will come off the bench.
Ngongba may be a little behind because of his recent injury history but the rest are good enough to start.
And that means a different sort of challenge for coach Jon Scheyer. We’re not ready to compare this team to the 2015 Kentucky team, but it looks like one of the deeper, more talented teams we’ve seen in recent years.
John Calipari outsmarted himself in 2015 and recruited more talent than he could really play. That team featured Devin Booker, the Harrison twins (Aaron and Andrew), Tyler Ulis, Karl Anthony-Towns, Wille Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress, Derek Willis, Trey Lyles and Dakari Johnson, among others.
Calipari was forced to play his guys in platoons and while the Wildcats threatened to pull off an undefeated season, they fell to Wisconsin in the Final Four, 71-64 and finished 38-1.
No one knew it at the time, but that represented the high water mark of the Calipari era at Kentucky. Recruiting fell off after that – negative recruiting played a role we’re sure – and while UK made the Elite Eight in 2016-17 and 2018-19, the rot had set in. After Covid, Kentucky fans increasingly lost patience with Cal’s approach and, generally speaking, were happy to see him go when he left for Arkansas last spring.
Could Scheyer suffer a similar fate?
Doesn’t seem likely.
First, no offense to Calipari, but Scheyer is a bit smarter and more able to learn from his mistakes. If it turns out he had too much talent, he’ll adjust going forward.
Secondly, he’s a young coach with a great perch at a time of enormous change in the sport. He’s shown real signs of adaptation and growth.
All that said, what will matter most with this team is how roles evolved and how players accept them. Odds are Brown and Ngongba will battle to backup Maluach. How will either handle being third? What happens is someone moves in past Maluach? He’s talented but raw. We could imagine a situation where his inexperience is a liability. How will he handle that?
How would Proctor or Foster handle coming off the bench? Not that much separates Knueppel, Evans and Harris but they can’t all play. Everyone wants to play. How will they handle that?
How Scheyer solves this is probably going to be the key to the season and how far this team goes.
