Kentucky Wildcats Basketball Practice Report

Kentucky’s summer practice sessions officially began Wednesday with a one-hour and 15-minute session.

According to John Calipari, the team is currently learning how to practice, and he’s encouraged with what he’s seeing, but the team has high expectations and he wants them to meet those expectations.

“The 2014-15 team never had a bad practice,” Calipari said to the team, according to TJ Beisner of CoachCal.com. ”That’s because those guys competed and cared about each other. Let’s give ourselves that challenge starting today.”

Beisner echoed the positive things that Calipari had to say immediately after practice. With it being the first practice, there wasn’t a whole lot going on. But Beisner did have some first impressions to give on some of the freshmen.

He said that Immanuel Quickley showed is “a truly phenomenal athlete,” he described Ashton Hagans as “confident and competitive,” he called Tyler Herro “smooth and confident,” and he said that everything comes easy to Keldon Johnson, yet he still plays hard.

But perhaps the most impressive first impression was EJ Montgomery’s.

The only word to really sum up seeing EJ up close at practice is “wow.” He has tremendous length and has unbelievable body control for a freshman big man. He’s far from a finished product, but he has tremendous potential and appears to be able to help this team in a number of ways. He will complement any group of four players he’s on the floor with.

Beisner also reported that walk-on freshman Zan Payne didn’t practice because he’s recovering from a high school knee injury.

Beisner also said that the whole team worked hard and seemed to enjoy themselves. Calipari said that the practice sessions will continue Thursday.