New Kentucky assistant says coaching mostly freshman team ‘shocks me a little bit’
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Bruiser Flint, a new addition to Kentucky’s basketball staff, has picked up on something long familiar to the Big Blue Nation in John Calipari’s time as coach: UK will have a freshman-dependent team.
This inspired Flint to ask his fellow staffers to put the team’s youth and inexperience in perspective.
“How does this team stack up against other (Kentucky) teams in the past?” Flint said on a teleconference Monday. “And they said this team has done an unbelievable job of picking things up. This has been one of their better groups in terms of that.”
To be tasked with coaching essentially a brand new team — Keion Brooks is the only player who logged significant minutes for Kentucky last season — “shocks me a little bit . . . ,” Flint said. “For me, that’s been the biggest adjustment. Like, man, brand new to the program and to college basketball itself.”
Flint said he spoke to Calipari about this challenge. “I don’t care how talented they are, they’re still kids,” he said. “And they act like it sometimes. So, you’ve got to deal with that.”
Flint replaced Kenny Payne, who had gained a reputation for working with UK’s big men. As a former head coach (Drexel, UMass), Flint said he and other coaches do not pigeonhole themselves as specialists who work with one segment of the team.
But, Flint added, he does work with big men. That prompted a question about the impression made so far by Olivier Sarr, the transfer from Wake Forest who is awaiting permission to play this season.
“One thing I know about Cal: He loves post presence,” Flint said. “Like, he’s not a guy who likes to shoot threes all the time. I think Olivier gives you post presence.”
Sarr can also be effective offensively from outside the basket area, Flint said. “He’s going to be a big deal. I know for a fact that Cal likes to post the ball. As much as you shoot a ton of three-point shots in college basketball nowadays, Cal believes if you don’t have post presence, you’re a little bit of a fraud. So, we need that, and I think Olivier is going to give us that.”
At this early stage, Flint suggested that Kentucky can be a capable shooting and shot-blocking team.
He included a group of players as shooters opposing defenses must defend: Dontaie Allen, Davion Mintz, Brandon Boston, Terrence Clarke and Devin Askew.
“I think we’ll put guys out there you got to (defend),” he said.
Flint also mentioned several players as effective and willing shot blockers. Those included Lance Ware, Isaiah Jackson and Sarr.
“It’s not easy sledding around the basket,” he said of shot attempts around the basket in workouts. “I know Cal is big on shot blocking. I know when you have a rim protector, he takes away a lot of mistakes.”
Of Allen, Flint said, “You never have enough shooters. And that’s one thing he can do. And one thing I do like about his shooting is he gets it off pretty quick.”
Flint did offer a cautionary note about shooting. He suggested that praise for a player shooting well in practice should be put in perspective.
“You never know until game time,” he said. “Guys can shoot the hell out of it in practice. They get in a game, they can’t make anything.”
In quick assessments of other players, Flint noted that Askew was “one of the hardest working kids I’ve ever been around,” that Ware was an eager rebounder (“what I call a tracker”) and that Boston was an “unbelievable finisher” whose practice time had been reduced because of a finger injury.
This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 4:04 PM.
