Third Season May Be Charm For Kentucky’s Marcus Lee

Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari has often made it known that it takes a special kind of person to play basketball at Kentucky. It’s simply not a task that everyone can, or even wants to step up to. The expectations are higher, the spotlight is brighter and if a kid expects to come to UK and spend more time on the hardwood than the pine, they have to be the best of the best.

The latter has served as the most towering obstacle in power forward Marcus Lee’s two-year stint in Lexington, as he’s been forced to wait his turn behind guys like Julius Randle, Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl-Anthony Towns, Dakari Johnson and Trey Lyles, who have all moved on left Kentucky in pursuit of careers in the NBA.

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But after seeing limited minutes through the first half of his collegiate eligibility, Lee’s patience may finally pay of in his third year with the Big Blue Nation.

When Lee became a member of yet another No. 1 overall recruiting class that Calipari has lured to Kentucky as a McDonald’s All-American, he was expected to provide relief minutes to Randle, the nation’s No. 3 freshman, while Johnson did the same for Cauley-Stein.

Instead, the abundance of options on the perimeter often pushed sophomore Alex Poythress to the post, and as a result, Lee rarely saw meaningful action and played only 6.3 minutes per game as a freshman.

Those limited minutes were mirrored by minimal contributions, where Lee contributed only 2.4 points and 2.7 rebounds per game as a freshman. But a potential eye-opening performance in Kentucky’s Elite Eight victory over Michigan, where Lee compiled 10 points and eight boards in only 15 minutes of action served as reason to believe he was in for a breakout sophomore campaign.

Then along came another top ranked recruiting class and an even more congested frontcourt, which featured four NBA-bound post presences.

The result … yet another season of spending the majority of his time watching his teammates make a run at history. As a sophomore, Lee sat for nearly 75 percent of each game on average, as he played only 10.9 minutes per contest.

In the 26-game stretch from the beginning of SEC play to Kentucky’s loss to Wisconsin in the Final Four, Lee played no more than nine minutes in 13 of those outings. Lee’s second season in college saw his statistical efforts take a minute jump at best, with his ppg. increasing to 2.6 as a sophomore, while his rebounding matched his freshman output of 2.7 per game.

But with seven members of Kentucky’s 2014-15 squad now off to the NBA, which includes the big men who overshadowed Lee, the 6’9” power forward may finally get his time to shine as a junior.

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As it stands, Lee is one of the three most notable returning Wildcats, along with Poythress and freshman point guard Tyler Ulis. Kentucky’s current recruiting class only includes one big man, which is the nation’s top-ranked center, Skal Labissiere.

The only other post players on Kentucky’s radar are five-star center Thon Maker, five-star center Stephen Zimmerman and five-star power forward Cheick Diallo.

Although Calipari can typically hand pick the recruits he wants and put them in a UK jersey the next season, it’s very likely Kentucky missed out on each of these top targets, as 247 Sports projects UNLV as the favorite for Zimmerman, while Diallo is projected to land with Bill Self at Kansas.

The only of the three where Kentucky lead’s the pack is in the two-horse race for Maker, where the Wildcats are a slight favorite over the Jayhawks. But even with that being said, there’s still been murmurs of Maker forgoing college and turning pro somewhere overseas.

This would seemingly make the vacant starting power forward role Lee’s to lose, and that would be far from a bad situation for Kentucky.

Despite rarely getting minutes in bulk, Lee has some pretty impressive per 40 numbers, with 15.1 points on .619 percent shooting, along with 9.2 rebounds and 3.6 blocks, per sports-reference.

When you consider this was done on purely hustle and will-power, as Lee is convincingly limited as an offensive weapon, there should be little doubt that an offseason of development and preparation for a larger role under Coach Cal would result in Lee being well-prepared for the task of stepping up as a starter.

This isn’t to say that we’re going to see Lee become one of the ever-so-common big men from Kentucky who sprout into NBA talents after one season in the spotlight, but there’s no denying Lee’s talent, motor, and passion for the game, which is why he could finally reveal why Calipari went after him in recruitment two year ago.

Lee’s time to shine may be upon us in his third season on campus.

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