What’s preventing Brandon Boston from being a star on this Kentucky team?
We asked for your questions about the Kentucky men’s basketball team, its slow start to the season, and the Wildcats’ recruiting efforts earlier in the week, and there were several good ones.
The first batch of answers to those questions was posted online Wednesday morning. Here’s Part 2 ...
In your opinion, what’s preventing Brandon Boston from doing the kinds of things that led to him being ranked as a top-five high school senior? His hype led me to assume that would carry over immediately and anchor UK’s status as a top team. Is there still post-Camp Cal hope for that?
In my experience of watching Brandon Boston as a recruit, he was at his best when he played alongside other players that could penetrate a defense and open up the court.
That hasn’t been the setup in the early going at Kentucky.
Without a proper summer, preseason and early-season schedule to get acclimated to the college game, point guard Devin Askew — the youngest player on the team — has struggled to get comfortable in the role. That’ll come in time. Grad transfer Davion Mintz, who was seen as the team’s backup point guard coming into the season, plays more like a combo or “2” guard and seems best off the ball. Breaking through that first layer of perimeter defense isn’t his inclination.
Now that Terrence Clarke has been moved to the point guard spot — and Calipari has doubled down on him at that position — we might see more of what made Boston such a coveted recruit.
On the Nike circuit, he played alongside five-star point guard Sharife Cooper, one of the nation’s best as far as penetrating the perimeter, drawing extra defenders, generally discombobulating defenses and opening the floor for others. Boston also played high school ball last season — when he truly broke out as a top-five national recruit — alongside multiple players who could shake up a defense. As teammates created on the ball, Boston had the instinct and ability to put himself into situations where — once that ball came to him — he either had ample space to shoot or enough space to drive and make something happen in the mid-range or at the rim.
I also watched him in settings like the NBPA Top 100 Camp, where players who are familiar with each others’ games but have (usually) never been actual teammates are thrust together and must figure things out on the fly. He didn’t always look great in those situations. He would force drives and force shots and force passes. His quickness and ability to score at odd angles was still there, but it wasn’t concentrated. It looked like he was making things up as he went along. In a lot of instances so far this season — with brand new teammates and an ever-changing offensive approach — that’s often what he’s looked like.
We’ve seen flashes of what Boston can be as a scorer — he’s still averaging 14.4 points per game — and he’s been able to contribute in other ways. (He’s averaging 6.2 rebounds per game, more than starting center Olivier Sarr and second best on the team). He can be so much more, as a defender, as a passer, and obviously as a scorer. Unlocking his potential offensively will likely carry over to more good things on the other end of the court, and it probably starts with having a player like Clarke at the point guard spot to break down defenses. If Clarke can make things happen on the ball — and I think he can — then opposing defenses will have to adjust, and that should lead to better opportunities for Boston to play his brand of basketball. (Not to mention more open shots for possibly great outside shooters like Mintz and Askew).
Like everything this season and with this Kentucky team, it’ll be a work in progress.
When Keion Brooks gets cleared to play I feel UK’s best lineup will be Clarke at the point, Boston at the 2, Brooks at the 3, Jackson at the 4, Sarr at the 5 and let the remaining players compete to get into an eight-man rotation. What are your thoughts?
Hey, it’s worth a shot. This team obviously needs a change of direction, and the addition of Brooks as an active player should only help (and give John Calipari some more options).
I do think moving Clarke on the ball will be a net positive for the Cats. He’ll make his share of mistakes and probably look out of control at times, but he can break down a defense, and he has enough talent around him to where he won’t have to do everything himself. Boston, Jackson and Sarr have to be in the starting lineup.
Brooks at the “3” would add some size and versatility to UK’s lineup, but — to play major minutes at that spot — he’ll need to make some shots. And unless he proves himself as a capable outside shooter, it would leave Boston as UK’s best three-point threat in that lineup (and he’s 19.2 percent from deep so far). Clarke is shooting 31 percent on threes, but he has never been regarded as a good outside shooter, so that number could very well drop as the season goes on. We also don’t know when Brooks will be cleared to play or what kind of shape he’ll be in once he gets back on the court. It would be unrealistic to expect him to play 30 minutes a night right off the bat.
Either way, Davion Mintz and Devin Askew have to get some considerable minutes for this team moving forward. Mintz might be the team’s best combination of perimeter defender and outside shooter (though he’s at 22.7 percent from three so far). Early struggles aside, Askew remains a promising player, has the potential to be a great point guard and outside shooter, and he should be a major part of this team and this program moving forward.
If you’re set on an eight-player rotation, that would leave Dontaie Allen, Jacob Toppin, Cam’Ron Fletcher and Lance Ware battling for the final spot. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Those players will continue to get their chances, but the window for more playing time will also continue to close as the season continues. They’ll need to take advantage of the opportunities they get in the short term. I don’t expect Calipari to play 10 or 11 guys in contested games. It’ll be interesting to see who’s left on the sideline a month or two from now.
What do you feel is the effect of Kenny Payne leaving the UK basketball program? When Coach Calipari was ranting on the sideline, it always seemed like Kenny Payne was gently bending the players’ ears on the sideline.
Payne was certainly a calming influence within Kentucky’s program, both on and off the court. He was looked at by many of Kentucky’s players as both a big brother and father figure, someone that could relate to them as players and people but also demand more of them on the court. And, yes, often, as soon as Calipari would finish one of his chewing-out sessions and turn his attention back to the floor, KP was there to reassure and express things a little more calmly. (He also did a fair bit of chewing out on the bench, mind you. He just didn’t look as irritable as he did it).
To be fair, Tony Barbee and Joel Justus did the same things on the sidelines, often switching seats with another player so they could sit next to the Wildcat that had drawn Calipari’s ire and have a more civil conversation. That’s difficult for everyone right now, with the socially distanced benches and no real opportunity for players and coaches to softly converse during games. Look at the UK bench this season and you’ll still see assistant coaches talking to players, but they have to shout several feet away to do it. It’s not the same visual and, I would imagine, isn’t quite as effective.
There are myriad ways that Payne affected the Wildcats in a positive manner, and his departure will be felt in areas across the program, on and off the court, for years to come. That ability to be a calming influence on the bench (and on the practice floor, and in the locker room, and anywhere else) was certainly a strength. But the biggest negative effect of his absence in the short term is probably the sheer timing of it. This season, more than any other, UK would have benefited not only from having him around this team of entirely new players trying to work their way through a pandemic but also from the continuity he would have brought to the coaching staff as a collective.
Trying to navigate a brand new team through unprecedented circumstances with relatively little face-to-face time would have been a daunting enough challenge for Calipari and his assistants in any year. To have to do that without a highly valued member of the coaching staff — someone who had been with the program for the past decade, through ups and downs — is just one more hurdle for Calipari and his team to overcome in this strange season.
