Kentucky Can't Replace Nerlens Noel's Defensive Presence After Injury

Nerlens Noel's torn ACL is a painful exclamation point on an already rough season. (espn.com)

Kentucky fans thought this season had been rough after winning a national championship last year. They didn't quite know what rough was until Tuesday when freshman Nerlens Noel tore the ACL in his left knee.

For the rest of the country, the biggest concern with Noel's injury is how this will affect his NBA draft stock and the future of the one-and-done rule. But Kentcky has bigger concerns than if Noel will head to the NBA in June (in case you're curious, ESPN's Chad Ford still has Noel as the No. 3 prospect even after the injury).

The Wildcats are fighting just to get into the NCAA Tournament and now will do so without the most consistent all-around force they have. The schedule isn't a cakewalk for a team in Kentucky's position, as they still have to go on the road to Tennessee and Arkansas and face Missouri and Florida in Rupp Arena. If the Wildcats come out of those four games at or below .500, they may be on the outside looking in on Selection Sunday, barring a run in the SEC Tournament.

The loss of Noel form a statistical standpoint is painful, but the biggest loss for UK is the now empty defensive presence around the basket.

Kentucky still has offensive weapons. Noel was the fourth leading scorer on the team, so it just means that Archie Goodwin, Alex Poythress and Kyle Wiltjer can still carry the load by stepping up a bit more. The real concern is on the defensive end and having a shot blocker roaming the paint and terrifying opponents into resorting to jump shots. Freshman Willie Cauley-Stein will take Noel's place in the lineup (he has averaged 7.8 ppg and 5.5 rpg) and while he has great potential, it's impossible to replace a player who is one of the best shot blockers in the game and deflects more than four per contest.

Imagine if Jeff Withey would go down for Kansas. That defense is completely altered because the player who made it impossible for the other team to get easy shots inside is not longer a threat. Withey, like Noel, is a player who cleans up his teammates mistakes with his blocking ability. Poor guard defense is much less noticeable if the opposing guard blows by his defender but his layup is blocked into the third row.

This means less room for error for the other Kentucky defenders and the aspects of the defense like rebounding and challenging shots, which Noel did so well, might come a little bit tougher the rest of the season.

Kentucky could already not afford a loss as significant as Noel, and especially now that the chances of a NCAA Tournament appearance becomes more bleak with every loss and poor performance. The season has been unusual by Kentucky fans' standards and now the young Wildcats have possibly their most difficult challenge ahead in the form of a 7-foot road block placed in their path.


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Will Calipari's System Be Questioned Again After Kentucky's Slow Start?

Is Kentucky's rough start leading to questions about John Calipari's freshman strategy? (yahoo.com)

The system of coaching in college basketball changed after John Calipari and Kentucky won a national title last season. Or at least that's what we thought.

The idea of senior leadership and building players has been exchanged in Lexington for the year's best recruits (and maybe a few old sophomores and juniors). And before last season, the formula had proven to produce positive results, but never the ultimate result, which made it easier for people to dismiss Cal's methods.

Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and the rest of the young Wildcats proved what raw ability can do with a season of preparation. Naturally, the same was expected of this year's group. UK has highly touted freshmen in Nerlens Noel, Alex Poythress, Archie Goodwin and Willie Cauley-Stein, who have even higher expectations and more pressure on them than last year's squad.

Kentucky just lost its second game in a row and third of the season, which is more losses than the 2011-12 team had all season and keeping them barely above .500 at 4-3. The 2011-12 team's first loss was on Dec. 10 to Indiana and then it didn't lose again until the SEC Tournament Championship game against Vanderbilt.

Freshmen are supposed to go through growing pains, and that's exactly what is happening to UK this year. The talent is there, but adjusting to the pace of the college game and facing hostile environments, not to mention building team chemistry, takes time.

This season's start is making last year look more and more like a once-in-a-decade group, rather than the new norm in the college game. Who else has found a team, led by freshmen, that only lost one game in the regular season (on a buzzer-beater 3-pointer in a loud Assembly Hall), go perfect in conference play and win a national title, all while looking like it was the best team in the country? If there were growing pains, they didn't show up in the final score. The starters rarely looked like the stage was too big for them and the chemistry was as good as it could be for players working together for the first year.

It was just assumed that since Cal pulled this feat off last year, of course he could do it again this year. That's what the system entails; come in for one year, be one of the best teams in the country, compete for a title and then go make money in the NBA. The most difficult part is the recruiting, and Cal has succeeded with flying colors.

But now we're seeing why coaches and analysts preach senior leadership and chemistry. Trust me, any coach would take the most talented freshmen if he could get them, and Cal shouldn't be faulted for that. There just also happens to be a down side to the approach, and we're witnessing it as Kentucky will most likely drop out of the top 25 this week.

This doesn't mean Kentucky is going to flop or remain in neutral all season. They'll be a dangerous team to face in the NCAA Tournament because a lot can be learned in four months. This is more about how special last year's team was, and that Cal hasn't discovered a fool-proof secret to the game, he has just crafted another way compete.

Other teams still have a fighting chance and the college basketball apocalypse can be put on hold until the next super-frosh team makes all of us rethink our team's strategy.


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