Wish it weren't so, but still need Skal...

[MdWIldcat55]

Alabama was a good match-up for Poy and Lee to handle the interior scoring and boards. Skal was invisible, and its tempting to say UK has turned the corner and can win without him.

But lots of bad match-ups out there.

The Cats don't need Skal to be Anthony Davis or Nerlens Noel or KAT, thank goodness. But they need him to protect the rim, be a reliable rebounder and hit that open ten footer.

A couple games coming up where he should be able to get his footing. I think Cal will try, try again to get him to step up.

 

[throatpoker]

skal wasn't invisible, i saw him on the bench clearly for 36 minutes. right where he belongs at this point in time

 

[Kybluedude]

Yep. Just shoot for 8 points 6 rbs challenge shots. Don't worry about big numbers. In fact all of the bigs should focus to give those attainable stats consistently. Do it by committee . No more 20 point games followed by a 2 point game

 

[docholiday51]

It would make us a better team if we could get 6 to 8 points and 4 or so rebounds out of him, but it is fair to say that may not happen more than once or twice the rest of the season. You would think there would be games where he would have a favorable match-up situation.

When you consider what has happened to date it has been a strange year, A win over Duke, a loss to Ohio St, we get more from Willis than we do Skal and a starting combo guard shooting 20 something % from the free throw stripe

 

[Blue Decade]

Alabama was a good match-up for Poy and Lee to handle the interior scoring and boards. Skal was invisible, and its tempting to say UK has turned the corner and can win without him.

But lots of bad match-ups out there.

The Cats don't need Skal to be Anthony Davis or Nerlens Noel or KAT, thank goodness. But they need him to protect the rim, be a reliable rebounder and hit that open ten footer.

A couple games coming up where he should be able to get his footing. I think Cal will try, try again to get him to step up.

How will he suddenly get his footing in the next couple games? Have you been watching? This isn't going to happen. Sure, any team would be better with a 7 foot player as good as Skal Labissiere was billed to be by the recruiting experts. But the real Skal Labissiere is not that player. The real Skal does not have the physical strength to get the job done over a 40 game college basketball season. Everyone needs to stop viewing Skal as the player they want him to be. That is spoiled fan behavior. Everyone just needs to look at Skal for the player he really is - a developmental baseline player who should be much better a year from now. This is not a 1 week kind of project. If it was, Calipari already would have taken care of it.

 

[SomeDudeCRO]

this team won't turn a corner, atleast not until march maybe. they are going to take more lumps, imho.

we have 3 pgs on the floor most of the time; they should be able to create all the post opportunities. dribble drive for layup, pull up jumper, kick to open 3, or dish to post for easy put in should be virtually the entirety of our offense imo

 

[westerncat]

I hate to say it but I have just about given up on Skal. He just did not get the training his senior year in HS that he should have gotten. I think Lee & Alex will have to step up & play like they did yesterday.

 

[ulismyman]

Well if we arent 16-4 going into KU..thats a problem....Arkansas may get us...thats it

 

[Blue Decade]

I hate to say it but I have just about given up on Skal. He just did not get the training his senior year in HS that he should have gotten. I think Lee & Alex will have to step up & play like they did yesterday.

Our fans need to get over the false hope that every freshman will play like an NBA All Star by the 15th game of their freshman year. Labissiere didn't play high school basketball for the last 2 years. Skal has shown that he needs to get stronger. He isn't going to become DeMarcus Cousins by next week. But why would anyone give up on him after 15 games? Some freshmen just need time to develop. Skal is 1 of those. He still has plenty of time to develop into an impact player, even if he is not a OAD.

 

[Bkocats]

I hate to say it but I have just about given up on Skal. He just did not get the training his senior year in HS that he should have gotten. I think Lee & Alex will have to step up & play like they did yesterday.

Same here. I do like the kid and he does have potential - and I hope the best for him. However, right now, best he can do is give some spot minutes and take up 5 fouls.

 

[ORCAT]

Same here. I do like the kid and he does have potential - and I hope the best for him. However, right now, best he can do is give some spot minutes and take up 5 fouls.

And, he does take up those 5 fouls in very few spot minutes lately.

 

[Bkocats]

And, he does take up those 5 fouls in very few spot minutes lately.

hmmm, true

 

[westerncat]

Same here. I do like the kid and he does have potential - and I hope the best for him. However, right now, best he can do is give some spot minutes and take up 5 fouls.

He will probably go after this year but he needs another year under Cal's teaching .

 

[caneintally]

this team won't turn a corner, atleast not until march maybe. they are going to take more lumps, imho.

we have 3 pgs on the floor most of the time; they should be able to create all the post opportunities. dribble drive for layup, pull up jumper, kick to open 3, or dish to post for easy put in should be virtually the entirety of our offense imo

This is true. But I don't think too many lumps . I think we lose at KU and Texas A&M and maybe Vandy . That is it . Also SKal has gotten better lately in attitude so I suspect his play will show that soon . He really has played with more anger and that is a good thing . He just needs to bottle it . I suspect somewhere in the next 6 game winning streak he has a 15/6 type game .

 

[caneintally]

He will probably go after this year but he needs another year under Cal's teaching .

There is no chance he goes pro as he is now . But if he averages 10/6 in the tourney and we get to the final 4 he will be a top 10 pick and he leaves. Very well good happen . But if the draft was today Skal would still be a UK player , same with Briscoe IMO.

 

[FlCATFan]

I think that Skal has a lot of potential. But it isn't now and likely never will be as a back to the basket power player. He just doesn't have either the physical tools or mental makeup for that. As good as Cal may be and with all of the player development that he has accomplished he just won't be able to make this square peg fit into a round hole.

 

[OldEvilleCat]

IMO he is still too immature to compete at this level, he plays like he's still in HS. Fighting for the ball with another player after the whistle has blown, the incident w/Simmons, talking trash, trying to block every shot, etc.... All of that is bush league crap, I've always been a big proponent of STFU and just play ball. Especially for him, since he's done nothing to prove he can back it up. I think this year will be a huge learning curve for him and think(hope) we will see a different Skal next year. I don't see how he won't be back next year (at this time)...but he has potential and that's mainly what the NBA draft is all about.

 

[docholiday51]

He will probably go after this year but he needs another year under Cal's teaching .

If there is not at least some change where in the world will he go, drafting on potential only goes so far. If he slides into the second round it would make more business sense for him to return, if he truly has the potential to play in the NBA, it would seem to me if he played his way into the first round rather than playing his way out of it.

 

[Chuckinden]

He will probably go after this year but he needs another year under Cal's teaching .

For our sake, he needs to move on, like Goodwin. We have the #1 center on our radar for next year.

 

[UKWildcats#8]

That's the ultimate question. Who would you rather have next year, a Soph Skal or a frosh Bolden? Right not it is kinda hard to argue in favor of Skal. I know the whole "You can't win with a team full of mainly frosh" argument comes to play here, but even if Bolden does not come...will Skal even start next year? It will be interesting to see.

I want UK to add Simmons and Bolden. The only way I do not want Simmons is if we get either Ulis or Murray back (latter is extremely unlikely, as is the former IMO, but others disagree on Ulis). We need as many 5 stars as we can get in case we have some that are not up to snuff like this season. You give Cal 4-5 good 5 star frosh and a senior Willis, a Soph Matthews and maybe a senior Mulder that steps up...that is a good team. Of course, there are others like Hawkins that will be back, and maybe one of the 6 we "expect" to leave comes back, but none of them other than Ulis or Murray really excites me. Skal would intrigue me, but not excite me at present.

 

[NCukcat62]

I think he is a great kid. But I despise him as a player. He clearly can only be worth his salt when facing small or very weak big men.

 

[Smashcat]

Alabama was a good match-up for Poy and Lee to handle the interior scoring and boards. Skal was invisible, and its tempting to say UK has turned the corner and can win without him.

But lots of bad match-ups out there.

The Cats don't need Skal to be Anthony Davis or Nerlens Noel or KAT, thank goodness. But they need him to protect the rim, be a reliable rebounder and hit that open ten footer.

A couple games coming up where he should be able to get his footing. I think Cal will try, try again to get him to step up.

I wish that block he held onto and threw up the court to Murray resulted in basket. Would have been a nice boost for his confidence.

 

[westerncat]

I'm just not ready to give up on him for this year. He's had some moments. He scored 26 points against NJIT and looked exactly like who we thought he was. He had some good plays against Duke. Then he just lost his confidence and everything has spiraled downward.

It seems to me more mental and psychological than physical. I'll concede that I'm hoping mostly. But I don't see it as impossible.

But that was against some of the weaker teams we played.

 

[63in62]

He will probably go after this year but he needs another year under Cal's teaching .

I don't think he is as valuable as Lee was as a freshman. If I were Cal I would encourage him to Go because some NBA team will pick him up based on potential alone. And if Skal has any potential, the pros will find it and find a way to get it out of him. Cal is still recruiting like no one else in the history of the game. why invest playing time in a pointing dog, fly swatting rebounder that can't hold on to a ball any better than the elderly and instinctively leans over like someone looking for the soap on the shower floor before going up for an attempted shot that always gets blocked? In fact Skal shouldn't count his blocks, he should count the times he gets blocked - he might lead the league in that one.

 

[bucsrule8872]

Cal and the staff will continue to work hard with Labissiere and he will continue to slowly improve until he is an serviceable player for us by March. Right now, the pressure should be off him a little bit with Poy and Lee assuming the starter roles and being the focus of the offense inside. He should be just concentrating on getting better fundamentally.

Based on Cal's track record with big men and how well he develops talent, I think we will be pleasantly surprised at Labissiere's play in March. I don't think he will meet the lofty expectations put on him at the start of the season, but compared to how he is playing now, I think we will be happy with his play by season's end.

 

[spotter34]

Getting back to the point of the OP, I do believe we still need Skal to contribute in order for us to reach our potential as a team. Granted we don't need him to be what we were expecting from him before the season but we do need him to improve. I think we'll see that as the season goes on. He should realize now that he don't have to "carry" the team, he just needs to recognize where his opportunities are and take advantage of those. If he can do that, and give Lee an opportunity to take a break here and there then that will help a lot.

I don't think Bolden will be deterred by Skal from coming to UK if Skal returns. If you were Boldens size would a player as soft as Skal keep you away from going some place you wanted to go? I don't think it so.

 

[uk78]

It is so beyond puzzling how bad he has been. Every single SEC team has a better playing center than Skal. I always have been willing to trust the "experts" over the people here because we have biases. But, how could they have been so terribly wrong? Even in the All-star game he appeared decent. He was being debated as the number one recruit versus Simmons (not top 20, top 50, etc.) It is more than confidence that seems so off. That missed possible dunk in the LSU game, he didn't even have time to think about being confident or not. It basically summed up everything wrong with him in addition to that air ball and poor rebounding.

I have felt as some others here, the main issue is he is playing out of position as a center. But, against Bama, he had a baseline opportunity facing the basket and still couldn't accomplish anything. I simply can't recall any recruit that was rated as the possible number one showing absolutely nothing to explain that rating.

Finally, I dislike the idea that frequently exists here that the next guy is always the answer (typically someone on the bench) or in this case Bolden. But, I can't imagine that Bolden would produce less than Skal. If some crazy NBA team wants to draft Skal, have at it.

 

[UK90]

The Cats don't need Skal to be Anthony Davis or Nerlens Noel or KAT, thank goodness. But they need him to protect the rim, be a reliable rebounder and hit that open ten footer.

I'm sorry, but when has Skal ever shown he can do the first two of those three things against decent competition (and, no, NJIT and Albany don't count)?

As far as I can tell from what I've seen, you're essentially saying we need him to do things he simply CAN'T do yet, at least not against real competition. The guy might have decent mid-range shooting touch, and he might have long term potential (or at least that's what the scouts say), but he's shown NO real ability at all to defend the post and board against quality big guys. Thus far he's looked WAY too soft, way too (physically) weak, and, frankly, just way too clueless inside.

Hopefully that inside ability will come for him some day, but it doesn't look likely to be this year.

 

[BigBlueFanGA]

That's the ultimate question. Who would you rather have next year, a Soph Skal or a frosh Bolden? Right not it is kinda hard to argue in favor of Skal. I know the whole "You can't win with a team full of mainly frosh" argument comes to play here, but even if Bolden does not come...will Skal even start next year? It will be interesting to see.

I want UK to add Simmons and Bolden. The only way I do not want Simmons is if we get either Ulis or Murray back (latter is extremely unlikely, as is the former IMO, but others disagree on Ulis). We need as many 5 stars as we can get in case we have some that are not up to snuff like this season. You give Cal 4-5 good 5 star frosh and a senior Willis, a Soph Matthews and maybe a senior Mulder that steps up...that is a good team. Of course, there are others like Hawkins that will be back, and maybe one of the 6 we "expect" to leave comes back, but none of them other than Ulis or Murray really excites me. Skal would intrigue me, but not excite me at present.

What 6 do we expect to leave? Poy, Murray, Ulis and maybe Lee. I guess you can count EJ since he'll be moving to WO status. If you want to add Simmons and Bolden to the 5 we already have coming, we have to get 7 scholarships open. That isn't going to happen. Cal has said he is now coaching Skal as a multi year player. I don't know how we find room for the 5 who have already signed as I'm not too sure about both Ulis and Lee leaving early.

 

[bucsrule8872]

What 6 do we expect to leave? Poy, Murray, Ulis and maybe Lee. I guess you can count EJ since he'll be moving to WO status. If you want to add Simmons and Bolden to the 5 we already have coming, we have to get 7 scholarships open. That isn't going to happen. Cal has said he is now coaching Skal as a multi year player. I don't know how we find room for the 5 who have already signed as I'm not too sure about both Ulis and Lee leaving early.

Just my opinion:

Labissiere will leave. He's 7'0 and athletic. He just needs experience and weight training. At the very least, a contender will draft and stash late in the first round.

Poythress will leave. Murray is gone.

Ulis is most likely gone. His stock is as high as it is going to get.

So Briscoe and Lee are the only starters that might come back, IMHO. Briscoe could work on his shooting and maybe improve his stock. Lee could work on his jumper and maybe improve his stock. Both need to spend some time working on shooting fundamentals. Both players need to work on their form on the free throw line.

So If that happens:

Lee
Willis
Hawkins
Mulder
Briscoe
Matthews
Humphries
Wynyard
Fox
Monk
Gabriel
Adebayo
Killeya-Jones

Floreal goes to walk on in that case.

Briscoe and Lee probably leave as well and we likely add Bolden and Floreal remains on scholarship to get us to 13.

 

[Graves51]

Hope not, I don't think he will develop near enough this year to be a serviceable player that we can count on. Nothing against him but he is absolutely over rated and just his lack of strength and confidence relegate him to bench status. Who else was recruiting him? I know we got him early, maybe there is a reason.

 

[BigBlueFanGA]

Unless Skal actually shows he can play the game I don't believe he will be drafted at all. Who wants to waste a few million on a two year guaranteed contract on a guy who just can't play the game? He would go directly to the DL and get eaten alive by guys fighting tooth and nail to earn a contract. Briscoe and Lee may leave,but again, have they maxed their daft stock yet? Neither would be drafted very high.

 

[wild mandu]

I'm not "giving up" but I'll also be fine if he doesn't play another minute.

Apathetic.

 

[BigBlueFanGA]

I hope Skal makes 100 million in the league but he is going to have to show he can play the game at a basic level before he can even dream of that. We were playing an important road game with a big in foul trouble and he managed all of 4 minutes, none in the second half. Who is going to draft him?

 

[.S&C.]

Another issue with Skal, is he doesn't understand the game at all. IMO , and I'm sure Skal is thinking it, he probably should have just stayed at Memphis and been around his real mentors, jerry tippet and Greg Philips. They always knew how to bring him out. And I never suggest a player stay at Memphis. Ever.

Memphis has a Terrible SOS, it's familiar to him, and it would have been much easier for him to produce against the AAC. of course, it's meaningless.

Having said that, Skal got 3 minutes against Alabama.

Alabama = 3 minutes.

He can't play here right now at all. Cal is completely hiding him at this point. Hopefully he comes back and sets that alarm for 3AM for gym time, or gets a 1st round pick and leaves. Expecting anything other than what he's giving us at this point is wishful thinking.

 

[waltim5]

His line for the last 9 games: FG%, 25%; 2.3 rebounds per game, 1.1 blocks per game, 3.11 personal fouls per game, 3.78 points per game. Not much hope in this.

 

[wildcatsboston1984]

We'll never reach our ceiling with Skal being useless, so here's to hoping everything clicks for him eventually. I don't see it happening this year, but I'm not giving up on him either. Unless he just proves to be mentally incapable of being a high quality player, he'll get there eventually.

 

[BigBlueFanGA]

His line for the last 9 games: FG%, 25%; 2.3 rebounds per game, 1.1 blocks per game, 3.11 personal fouls per game, 3.78 points per game. Not much hope in this.

And that is why I doubt Skal gets drafted and makes me wonder how we make room next year. Given time to develop here with Cal I think Skal can still make it in the NBA but it may take 2 or 3 more years. The poor kid is having to learn the game from the most basic starting point. It will take time.

 

[BigBlueFanGA]

Hopefully he has a Waterboy type switch and Cal just hasn't found it yet.

 

[TNCatfanforever]

Same here. I do like the kid and he does have potential - and I hope the best for him. However, right now, best he can do is give some spot minutes and take up 5 fouls.

He seems to have an attitude. We saw it against Ben Simmons and yeste day. Now let's channel that into some solid minutes on the floor.