Oakland Soldiers Coach is Pro-UK

Oakland Soldiers is the AAU team that Kyle Wiltjer played for. 2013 recruit Aaron Gordon and 2014 recruit Stanley Johnson also play for the program. Their coach, Mark Oliver, talks to NextCats about the two recruits:

On Stanley Johnson:

Olivier called Johnson a “student of the game,” and said the 6-foot-6 forward fully understood the importance of UK’s early offer. He’s only the fourth player in the class of 2014 to receive one.

“Stanley knows. He watches a lot of college basketball, and he’s looked at the schools,” Olivier told Next Cats. “That’s one of the biggest things about Stanley. He might be 16 years old, but he’s really like 19 mentally. Very mature kid. When you meet the kid and you talk to him, he has so much information. He really studies the game.”

On Aaron Gordon:

“I think he’s looking at the winning attitude and if it’s continuing with each one of the schools that he’s going to consider,” Olivier said. “And he’s going to look at the best fit as far as academics. One thing about both Aaron and Stanley, school is very important to them. They’re not just basketball guys.”

Oliver also said that Wiltjer has spoken to both Gordon and Johnson but hasn’t put the full-court press on. But he did say when it gets closer to the decision, “He’ll do it.”

Gordon has UK in his top three, and Johnson who recently got an offer said that “Kentucky is the best program in college basketball right now.”

Very good news for John Calipari and Kentucky.

Calipari says not to worry about Nerlens

Calipari updated his Facebook today, and he said that he was talking to the NBA personnel at the Adidas Nations where he asked how his his guys were doing. Willie Cauley, Kyle Wiltjer, and Nerlens Noel were all in attendance. Nerlens has been under scrutiny as some people are saying his performance has been extremely poor. Here is what Calipari and NBA personnel said:

They told me Willie, like he’s been in practice this summer, was an absolute beast. He was aggressive, extremely coachable and played with confidence. They said Kyle looks stronger, quicker and more explosive. I’m told he missed some shots in the first games, but I’m not worried about Kyle missing. Just like last year – and like he did Sunday – he’s going to hit a lot of big shots for us. Of course, I was really interested to hear about Nerlens because we haven’t had a chance to work with him yet. My question was, was he one of the best prospects there? They said absolutely. We haven’t had the chance to add anything to his game yet – no conditioning, no weight training, no individual attention – but they loved him because he was so coachable, so smart and picked up everything in a short period of time. In Willie’s case, we’ve 16 one-hour workouts with him, so we’re seeing a different Willie than the one we saw in high school. Wait until we get Nerlens on campus to do the same thing.

So there is Calipari’s assessment. He says don’t worry, Nerlens will be just fine once we get to work with him. How can you argue with him? Sit back and enjoy the ride cats fans. In Cal, we trust.

MKG, Miller, and Lamb talk about 2012-13 Team

 

Kyle Tucker of the Courier-Journal caught up with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Darius Miller, and Doron Lamb since they have returned to Lexington and asked them what they thought of the next UK team. Here is what they said:

 

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist

ON WHETHER RYAN HARROW CAN STEP RIGHT IN AND BE THE GUY AT POINT GUARD: “I think so. He’s fast. He’s just him. He’s just … I mean, he’s just good. I don’t know how else to put it. He’s good.”

 Darius Miller

ON WHAT HE’S SEEN FROM THIS YEAR’S UK TEAM: “I got a chance to see them practice a couple times, so I’m really impressed. Looks like they have a talented team. I look for a lot of them to do good things: Ryan (Harrow), Kyle (Wiltjer), the new guys. I was really impressed. I think they’re going to have a really good team and everybody’s going to enjoy watching them.”

ON WHICH NEW GUYS STOOD OUT: “All of them, really. Archie (Goodwin), Alex (Poythress), they were playing really well. Seemed like they were picking up stuff pretty fast, so I feel like they’ll be ready to go.”  (Asked if it feels like déjà vu watching Cal get yet another young, new roster ready. He grinned and nodded.)

ON WHETHER IT’S PUTTING TOO MUCH ON THIS TEAM TO EXPECT ANOTHER FINAL FOUR/TITLE RUN: “I feel like it’s that way every year at Kentucky. They want us to win the title every year. It’s nothing different. They all know you have high expectations when you come here. I feel like they’ll be able to step in and fill the shoes.”

Doron Lamb

ON EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS YEAR’S UK TEAM: “They’ve got a great team. They’ve got a great all-around team. Kyle is a veteran on that team now, so he’s got to step up and be a leader. And especially Ryan. He had a whole year here working out with us, so he knows how it is. He knows the offense very well. He should be a big part of the team this year. They’ve got great freshmen coming in, in Archie, Alex and Willie (Cauley-Stein), and the big kid, Nerlens (Noel). So I think they’re going to have a great team to win it all this year.”

ON WHETEHER PEOPLE WILL BE SURPRISED THE FIRST TIME THEY SEE LITTLE HARROW RAISE UP AND DUNK: “Oh, he can jump. He’s been jumping since he was in high school. He’s been on all that YouTube, hoop mix tapes, dunking on everybody. In college, though, it’s going to be a little harder to dunk on everybody in college, though. But he should have a good chance of dunking on a few people this year, though.”

 

For the full story and video you can go here