UK is vulnerable.

[jordoo]

There just aren't any scary teams this year. No one is that great or clearly ahead of he pack. We are in a great position this season with our mix of experience, talent, size and depth.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Kentucky will improve throughout the year and if they get the right draw and play well they could have a shot at the final 4 but this is really going to be a sweet 16 team in my opinion. If you think Goodwin is going to be really good and Poythress is going to be a good forward then I will say that's possible. I think they are solid players but outside of Noel I don't think you are going to be amazed by them come February and March. Also please stop with the Maryland is a solid team crap. They looked awful. They were missing option perimeter shots by like 5 miles and they were not moving the ball well in their offense. All their offense was coming off of transition crap they should have never gotten if Kentucky weren't unbalanced on offense. I can't wait to play them next year and beat them by 20 at their place.

Funny. I could say the same thing about SU the past few years. Maryland played poorly but that dosn't mean that they aren't solid or will be. They are likely a middle of the road ACC team and a borderline tourney team. Len has some real length and can be a deterrent around the rim. Same with UK. Too early to judge for them since it's almost a whole new cast of characters. Too early...obviously.

 

[PoppyHart]

I haven't heard one person compare them to last year's team. That team had about a 20% margin of error over the competition. This team does not. But it has enough to be in the mix in the end.

It could be true that there's no "great" team this year, as people have argued in this thread. I'd prefer to let teams play a handful of games before making that assessment. Remember, in 2010, we went from off the radar (Lemoyne) to seemingly great (UNC) in about 10 days. There may be a team out there, say an Arizona, that really has all the pieces.

 

[Flacusian]

The notion of being able to accurately assess a team based on their performance in their 1st game of the season is absurd. Perhaps you can gain insight as to areas of strength and weakness but with an entire season lying ahead in which the team morphs into it's March identity there are too many factors which come into play that make it ridiculous to think you can accurately project how they will end up at the close of the season.

People who make such authoritative proclamations are the same people who claim the sky is falling when Syracuse has a loss or a poor showing early on in the season. History is replete with examples of teams who looked horrible early on or even throughout the entire season and then when on to great things in March. There is a Uconn team... well you know the rest.

 

[Knicks411]

It could be true that there's no "great" team this year, as people have argued in this thread. I'd prefer to let teams play a handful of games before making that assessment. Remember, in 2010, we went from off the radar (Lemoyne) to seemingly great (UNC) in about 10 days. There may be a team out there, say an Arizona, that really has all the pieces.

Definitely agree with this. It's harder to pinpoint the dominant teams before the season starts now than in the past because there are fewer veteran stars, but that doesn't mean there won't be any great teams. Not sure anyone was calling UK a great team before the season started last year.

 

[Melancer46]

My guess is Kentucky will finish this year ranked outside the top 5 and won't make it past the Sweet 16.

Calipari is a guy who's always had his offense built around a dribble drive system. They don't really have the personnel for that this year. Goodwin has the freakish athleticism to be a menace attacking the rim, but I think he's going to take a little while to learn how to attack while remaining under control.

But yeah, I don't think this team is anywhere near as good as last year's. They got a lot of highly ranked recruits, but I don't think they got recruits that really fit Calipari's system and I'm not really sure why.