The Blue and White Platoon is in full works. John Calipari’s University of Kentucky team is loaded with talent. They have so much talent that Calipari believes that the team is better off “having two teams”. He calls them Blue & White. Instead of rotating players through the line up, he rotates teams. Here are his teams or platoons:
Blue White
Willie Cauley-Stein Marcus Lee
Karl-Anthony Towns Dakari Johnson
His tag line in the early part of the season is the following: “No Subs, it is Reinforcements.” He does not believe in subs, he wants continuity; so he sends in the reinforcements (the other team or platoon).
On Tuesday night Kentucky and the system was challenged. They went up against Kansas, the #5 team in the nation. How would the system work against one of the better teams in the nation? Well, here are the results:
The Score
University of Kentucky ended up running away with the game. They ended up winning the game in dominating fashion. The final score was 72-40. The crazy thing about the blow-out is that Kentucky did not play a stellar offensive game. They only shot 43% from the field and 61% from the free throw line. But, there defense was stellar. Kentucky is Legit with a CAPITAL L. They just blew out the #5 team in the nation while struggling on the offensive side of the court.
Blue or White
The edge would go to the blue team.
Best Player
This is tough. But this night may have belonged to Karl-Anthony Towns. He played a great game. His three key stats were the following: 9 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks.
You Gotta Be Kidding Me
Dominique Hawkins had to come off the bench late in the second half due to an injury. Hawkins is a young man who could start for many Division I schools but he is the 11th man for UK. However, that will be the case when the team that you play on has 9 McD’s All-Americans.
Crazy Stat
All 10 players in their two platoon’s scored in both halves.
Let me Check My Eyes
Are you serious that the Cats held the Jayhawks to 19% from the field? The pressure and defense is unbelievable.
University of Kentucky is going to be a fun team to watch. The ten players played 17 (least) to 21 (most) minutes. As the season goes on, this will give them more strength and their stamina will really tire the teams out.
The Cats are for real and their #1 ranking is well-deserved.
Photo Credit: Andy Lyons