This December has marked one of the coldest winters for the Kentucky Wildcats.
It was only the beginning of the month and they already received some terrible news to start the season. The news was devastating as Kentucky lost their starting small forward, Alex Poythress, because of an ACL injury. Ever since his departure from playing basketball in Lexington, nothing has been the same for their team.
Since Poythress can no longer play, Kentucky’s head coach John Calipari made necessary changes to his already awesome substitution method, the platoon.
The use of the platoon system is getting the Wildcats more unselfish and it’s also making Calipari’s team a lot more hungry.
When a person comes into a basketball game and they don’t know the number of times they’ll get the basketball, have an opportunity to score, or do anything to make an impact, it makes them have an overall team focus which rewards players for doing the little things to win games, and essentially helping the player to stay on the court.
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One of the players that’s blossomed from the platoon system is freshman, Trey Lyles. Now that Lyles is in the starting lineup he gets to develop the consistent jump shot that he needs, and he gets to make a solid contribution offensively in the process.
With all of the advancement that Kentucky’s made offensively their perimeter defense needs a lot more help.
Poythress was the team’s best perimeter defender, and since his injury there have been a number of guards in college basketball that have given Kentucky trouble including Vanderbilt’s Riley LaChance, Texas A&M’s Danuel House, Ole Miss’ Stefan Moody and Louisville’s Terry Rozier.
When will coach Calipari start to give one of the team’s best perimeter defenders a chance at the starting lineup, and not, Tyler Ulis, either. As good as Ulis is, Kentucky should have two great perimeter defenders getting minutes in each platoon, instead of only one great defender playing with the best unit.
Because of the Poythress injury should the Wildcats start to speed up their perimeter defense? Is it time to start consistently giving their other backup point guard, Dominique Hawkins, minutes?
Although Hawkins might not posses the experience that Poythress has, he’s would still be one of the older players within the starting lineup. Additionally, having Hawkins on the floor gives the Wildcats another element of the game that they’ve been missing since Poythress’ injury, intelligence.
Hawkins, who plays the point guard position is one of the smartest players on the court. Hawkins isn’t going to come into a game and chuck up shots left and right knowing he has two multiple hosses in, Karl-Anthony Towns, and, Willie Cauley-Stein, in the paint waiting for another post touch.
On the contrast adding another intelligent point guard in the starting lineup, defensively, isn’t going to hurt the Wildcats, especially when they already have two players in Andrew and Aaron Harrison in the starting lineup that are 6’5″ apiece.
Furthermore, the strongest part of the 6’0″, 195 pound Hawkins game is on the defensive side of the basketball. In his freshman year he was labeled as Kentucky’s top defensive stalwart and that’s high praise on any Kentucky roster.
One other part to consider is the honor a person gets playing for their hometown team. Hawkins who is from the city of Richmond, was named the 2013. Mr. Basketball in the state of Kentucky when he played for Madison Central High School. Hawkins is also the the 17th player in the history of the Kentucky basketball program to have that prestigious honor.
The pride that Hawkins has for Kentucky is the reason he’s a member of their roster today.
In an interview with Eric Lindsey on CoachCal.com Hawkins said this about his allegiance to Kentucky:
“Even if an NBA team offered me to come on their team, I’m going to UK first,” Hawkins said. “That’s a no-brainer.”
The fact that Hawkins is living his dreams playing for his beloved Wildcats is enough of a reason to want to see him succeed.
Thankfully for Kentucky, he’s got the chance to help them become a better team, and much faster.