SEC: The NCAA Tournament Turned Andrew Harrison Into An NBA Player Overnight

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Picture being a 6-foot-6, 210-pound point guard, with a 6-foot-8 wingspan, with wicked handles, and the ability to take anyone off of the dribble. Picture only losing 11 games in your freshman year, and helping lead your team to the NCAA championship game.

Picture coming back to school in your sophomore year to make sure you left Kentucky as a winner and attempting to help the school capture its ninth national championship.

For Andrew Harrison, Kentucky’s starting point guard, he doesn’t have to do much picturing, because he’s really living this life.

Harrison has been one of the most scrutinized players in college basketball the entire season. It’s not all of his fault though, anytime something is perfect we have a tendency to want to look for faults and Harrison receives the grunt of the blame when Kentucky doesn’t look next to perfect as they nearly always do.

However, during the times when Kentucky looks perfect (which is often, 38-0 often) it’s because Harrison’s game is rolling. In the 2015 NCAA tournament, Andrew Harrison went from the scapegoat of Kentucky’s failures to the reason for Kentucky’s success.

DrewRoc5, as his Twitter handle says, has handles that so sick that he’ll rock his opponents to sleep with his crossover dribble and then wait for them to recover so that he can do it again. When he’s not shaking his opponents though Harrison’s using his ability to take his defender off of the dribble to do something special.

Again I’ll say it, serious handles everyone. Serious handles.

Harrison has dominated in the NCAA tournament and has scored in double figures in half of the games he’s played in.

Hampton got the work first as he went for 14 points, four rebounds, three assists, and one steal. Then he wasn’t nearly as impressive against Cincinnati only finishing with five points, two rebounds, two assists, one blocked shot. Then Harrison turned up against West Virginia as he had a monster game of 13 points, three rebounds, two assists, four steals and one blocked.

When Harrison played against Notre Dame it was his two clutch free throws with six seconds remaining that helped Kentucky stay undefeated. He finished with seven points, three rebounds, two assists, and one steal in a close win.

Because of the NCAA tournament, though, a lot of people have started to see how truly gifted of a player Harrison is.

For anyone with great handles it’s normally a fact that they turn the basketball over a lot, but that’s not the case for Harrison. He’s not only a great ball handler but he keeps his turnovers down. In the NCAA tournament alone he’s only turned the basketball over four times. On the season he averages 1.7 turnovers a game.

What’s been really impressive this season is the way that Harrison has become more of a natural point guard. He’s a very smart decision maker, even though he fits in the role of an initiator of the offense.

The scary part of his game is that he’s got much room for improvement still. Once Harrison develops a consistent outside jump shot, his game will be as good as gold. This season Harrison is shooting a woeful 28.6 percent on his two point jump shots, but more impressively 37 percent on his three-point jump shots.

Right now Harrison’s already got the ability to use his combination of slick handles and his strong frame to become a matchup nightmare in transition. On the next level he’s got an ability that can’t be taught to point guards. People call it the it factor, but he’s already blessed with the ability to do “it.”

For as good as Harrison’s been on the court though, the true testament of his growth this season has been his maturity.

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Fairly often in his freshman season, and even at the beginning of the year we saw bad body language, and a somewhat negative attitude. Harrison was a bit of a diva. He would constantly complain to referees about calls, and would even blame his teammates at times.

As a sophomore and a more mature player he’s done a lot less of that. Since the season’s progressed we’ve seen him grow up a bit, and tone his attitude down.

Bottom line is playing at Kentucky couldn’t have been a better situation for him because in the era of basketball where the dribble drive offense is everywhere, he’s already accustomed to its style.

Had it not been for his ability to break down the defense and get into the lane time and time again, Devin Booker, and his brother Aaron Harrison, wouldn’t have the open shots that they get in games.

If Harrison would declare for the NBA Draft he obviously would have to come into the league and learn, but his potential is great as any point guard in the draft. Will he ever reach it? That’s a question for Harrison himself.

All we know now is, for the second straight season Andrew Harrison’s helped lead Kentucky to a second final four appearance.

That’s got to mean something.

Next: SEC: 5 Reasons Why Gregg Marshall Should Coach At Alabama

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