In 2010, there was a team that was slated to dominate the college basketball landscape whether you liked it or not. Led by future lottery picks, John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins the 2010 Kentucky Wildcats were one of the most heavily hyped teams in recent college basketball memory.
At the end of it, Wall, Cousins and the Wildcats underperformed by some standards and finished with a loss in the elite eight. The season was John Calipari’s first as the head coach of Kentucky and it set up further success in the years to come.
Now in 2015, the current Kentucky Wildcats are undefeated, chasing perfection as the NCAA tournament gets set to start. There has been talk all season about who can beat Kentucky? Can any team compete with them? Can they beat an NBA team? How good are all these players?
Well according to 2 NBA talents, the current Wildcats team can’t hold a candle to the 2010 team.
Following from Ben Standig of CSN Washington.
“Well, they got the better record, but I wouldn’t say (they’re the better team),” the Washington Wizards guard told CSNwashington.com. The Wall-Cousins squad entered the 2010 tournament a No. 1 seed, but lost in the regional final to West Virginia. That aspect looms large in any trash talk scenario.
“We were a better team, but we didn’t win,” Wall continued. “They’re going to have the leverage because they went 40-0 and got a national championship to back it up.”
“I mean, yeah. [John is] right. They would be considered the best, but we all know the truth,” Cousins said. “Hopefully these guys do pull this off.”
I hate to burst Wall and Cousins’ bubble but this current team might be too good. They’re so good, they can play with 2 lineups at any time. They have about 6 talents that can be legit lottery picks and another 3 guys who can go in the first round for one reason or another.
While Wall and Cousins were the obvious standouts on that 2010 team, the other 3 guys were good talents as well with Eric Bledsoe, Daniel Orton and Patrick Patterson but that’s really all Kentucky had. This years team has a bunch of guys who are really good like Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl-Anthony Towns, Dakari Johnson, Aaron Harrison, Andrew Harrison, Trey Lyles and Devin Booker and the player who might be their best player, Alex Poythress, has missed a majority of the season.
I don’t think that 2010 team or many teams in the history of the NCAA can hold a candle to this current Kentucky Wildcats team. It’s rare to see a team have basically 2 separate lineups so when they switch to their ‘bench’, it’s just as good as any team in the nation.
Kentucky should split up their team and see if they can end up in the NCAA tournament to face off against each other.
