But we are an extremely experienced team, especially compared to UK. That’s worth keeping in mind. Also, Devan Downey (Cinci) and Zam Fredrick (Ga. Tech) were transfer and so won’t show up in our Rivals rankings. Both were highly rated out of high school.

This doesn’t quite debunk the argument.

+ Perhaps rivals cannot adequately evaluate talent.
+Rankings are a snapshot of the players’ abilities in high school, not accounting for player development (or regression) over his career
+Rankings do not count transfers to or out of program
+Team can be more talented top to bottom (depth), but opposing team might have four very talented players that can outperform depth.

Agree that UK has talent to compete in SEC.

But the other 4 wouldn’t be in the top 5 of their positions. Just goes to show you want can happen when you have a stud PG.

I have been thinking about this a lot. I do believe that SC has more ability than UK. This is not to say that UK may have players with more talent as defined as natural ability. You can have an IQ of 200 but if you never learn, of what use is your brain? You could be born with all the musical talent in the world but if you never learn to play an instrument what band would you play in? I say the 2009 version of the same players for SC has more ability than the 2008 version. The practiced and learned how to play better. On this level of competition, players must improve every day because someone else is. That someone will beat you even if in high school, you were faster, taller, stronger and better looking. Yes even if you have more talent. Some of the current group of players may have the potential to be better. But talent, as define by natural ability, means nothing compared to your ability to perform today. After all, baskeball is a learned activity. If you never learn how to play, you’re not a player. You are just tall.

… is really not a very good one.

Basketball is a team sport. Nobody should know this better than Kentucky fans. When we were drubbing teams back in 1991-92 with Pelphrey, Feldhaus, Mashburn, Brown, Ford, Woods, Farmer, Brassow, and Riddick among others, could you argue that we were more talented than 60% of the teams we played? No. Mashburn was the only NBA player on the team. We took Duke, a team that had more talent in three of their starting five than UK had on its entire roster put together, to the wire.

Talent and team are different things. USC probably does not have an NBA player on it’s entire roster right now. Not one. Devan Downey and Zam Fredrick will make money playing basketball, but not in the League. Downey is a midget and lacks the extreme athleticism needed in the NBA when you are that small. Zam Fredrick’s shot takes 15 seconds to release, and right now he doesn’t have NBA range. Both those guys will be playing overseas, as will maybe one or two of the rest.

UK has at least two players who will be in the NBA both likely first-round draft picks (Meeks will be one next year), and could have four (I’m still not sure Liggins is good enough, but he could be, and Miller could develop into an NBA player). Stevenson will make money overseas, and Harrellson may as well if he improves. Even A.J. Stewart is potentially an overseas player, although I don’t think he has enough natural ability to develop into an NBA player.

The reason the South Carolina players look so good is because they are playing very well together. That makes everybody look a lot better than they are. Not only that, coach Horn has inspired them to play above their heads, which makes them look all-world. But they aren’t.

When I see people raise this talent issue, I just shake my head. This is such a tired debate, and although having a certain minimum level of talent is critical to ultimate success, what is most important is the ability to play well together. A winning team is about teamwork, and enough talent to be able to carry out the team concept effectively against any team. We saw that in the 1992 ’Cats, the Suffocats, and many other times in Kentucky history.

Kentucky has plenty of talent if they played well as a team and with maturity. Winning with talent alone is also certainly possible, but as we have seen from North Carolina in the last two years, all the talent in the world won’t get you to the brass ring if you don’t play well together. We need to make sure we have enough talent to beat the best teams. Right now, we don’t — we need maybe one or two more stud players. The good news is, they arrive next year, and assuming Patterson and Meeks both stay, we will find out if coach Gillispie belongs here at Kentucky.