WILDCATS

Practice-tested platoons ready for UK's opener

Kyle Tucker

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Technically, tonight's season opener against Grand Canyon is the first game that counts for the preseason No. 1 University of Kentucky basketball team. Just don't tell sophomore forward Marcus Lee or his ultra-competitive teammates.

"Our wins and losses matter in here" in the practice gym, Lee said. "We gotta run every time we lose, so it means a lot to win or lose, no matter who we're playing right now."

That's exactly the mentality coach John Calipari hoped would come from a team with a dozen starter-quality players and 10 projected NBA draft picks all fighting for minutes. His vision, upon dividing that talented roster into two platoons, was not just to overwhelm opponents in games but to create intense competition in practice.

So far, it has apparently worked.

"They've been really good," Calipari said. "They're tough, but they're not nasty about it. They want to win and they take great pride in it."

They also want to avoid the running.

"We're not going to go into how much running that is, but just know that we're tired after it. You'd be tired watching us run," Lee said. "Even without the running, the competition during practice is insane."

The Wildcats do a drill called "Perfect Stop," where one platoon is forced to defend the other for the full 35 seconds on the shot clock. The idea is to keep offensive players out of the lane and the ball out of the basket.

"It's probably the best part of practice," Lee said, "because we're trying to kill each other."

The danger, of course, in splitting a roster into two distinct sets of players is creating, essentially, two separate teams inside the same locker room. But no one seems to be worried about division on this team. They've instead actively pursued unity outside of practices.

"Just fellowshipping all the time," freshman forward Trey Lyles said, "so nobody sets themselves apart, no platoon sets itself apart. We all love hanging out with one another, so there's really no two teams, stuff like that. It's all one team."

Lee, a Platoon 2 member, said he and freshman Karl-Anthony Towns, a Platoon 1 guy, get mad at each other sometimes in the gym. They argue and even get to the point of "almost about to fight," Lee said. "Then after practice we're totally laughing about it and just going on about our business.

"We're just so cohesive, just as a family – not even just as a team – we flow with each other so well."

Calipari agreed, saying the Wildcats have enjoyed good leadership in the summer and preseason, which has been helped by having an unprecedented (in his time at UK) eight returning players. But he's not naïve enough to think there won't be bumps in the road trying to manage minutes and mix and match pieces on his absurdly deep and talented team.

"Right now, they've all but in. Right now, they're taking pride in this. But going forward, it's going to be a great challenge," Calipari said. "I'd rather not do this. I hope I never have to do this again. But right now, with this team, this is the fairest way of getting every one of these kids an opportunity and letting things play out on the court that dictate where we go."

In six summer exhibition games against international pros and two preseason exhibitions that UK won by a combined 117 points, the experiment has yielded only overwhelming success. But how will it hold up against the four top-10 teams the Wildcats face by the end of December?

What happens when they run through an unusual early-season grind with six games in the next 11 days, including No. 5 Kansas in Indianapolis next Tuesday? Calipari can't wait to find out.

"We need adversity so bad," he said. "We need to get hit in the mouth as soon as we can. We need to be down 10, and let's figure out what we are. We need to get these freshmen into heated games where a basket matters. Can you make shots? Can you make (free throws) now? We don't know."

The players think they know, though, how they'll respond – and why this platoon system will work now that the games truly count.

"Because we all care about one another," Lyles said. "Nobody wants to let each other down, so nobody's going to do that."

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Follow him on Twitter @KyleTucker_CJ.