Inside UK basketball practice, Vol. III
Got a third straight look at Kentucky basketball practice today, and it was a treat. As he told the media he would in a Q&A session beforehand, coach John Calipari mixed and matched his guys in several different groupings for scrimmages Wednesday.
Without getting too specific, there were some fun pairings. We saw him split up the Harrison twins for one stretch. That also meant UK's two point guards, 6-6 Andrew Harrison and 5-9 Tyler Ulis, played together for a bit. We also got a twin-towers look with Dakari Johnson and Karl-Anthony Towns on the same team briefly.
(Side note: Pretty hilarious when Aaron Harrison had to put on Ulis' practice bib, which looked like a sports bra on Harrison. It's the little things that make us hacks happy. Get it?)
Not a lot of time today to take or post practice observations – Calipari and a few players did a lot of talking before practice and I have a story to write – but a few thoughts:
* Really starting to like freshman shooting guard Devin Booker. He's been especially good the last two days, not only in the way he shoots it, which is smooth, but also in some of the athletic plays he can make and the way he gets to the basket to score.
* Andrew Harrison, who said his ankle has been bothering him this week and he didn't think he'd practiced very well, had his best day of the three I've seen. Really aggressive, great, strong takes and some really heads-up passing. He's in control.
* One flash of beautiful basketball: Andrew Harrison to Ulis to Booker in the corner – bang, bang, bang – for a swished 3-pointer. In contrast, but equally impressive: 7-footer Dakari Johnson leading a break, taking it all the way and dropping in an and-one.
* Johnson is just a monster in the paint. I'd love to know his conversion rate on offensive rebounding opportunities. He's got to be 80 percent or better on corralling offensive boards that are anywhere near him. Just gobbles them up. He's an immovable object down low and once he has it down there, he's hard to keep from putting it in the basket. Fun to watch.
As mentioned previously, he's also making much more athletic plays. He thundered down the lane for one dunk that dropped most onlookers' jaws and went way up to throw down an alley-oop dunk. Didn't see that very often last season.
* Poythress still isn't the sharpest shooter, but he can certainly be a force. He posterized a couple of people and made one really nice power move to score inside that I noticed. I'm still not sure he's an ideal three, but when playing as an undersized four, he's an absolute handful. So explosive.
That's all I got for now, but there will be much, much more basketball coverage in the coming hours and days right here on this site. So stay tuned.
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