All of John Calipari’s great players have one trait in common: None of them knew how good they were, including his latest great point guard, freshman Brandon Knight.
“He’s not sure how good he is,” Calipari said. “That’s a great sign.”
Knight flashed his potential in his first game in a Kentucky uniform when the Cats played a series of exhibition games in Canada back in August. His 31-point, zero-turnover debut got the Big Blue Nation excited quickly and sparked comparisons to last year’s star floor general, John Wall.
“I was surprised with how well things went in the beginning because you see practices and never know how games will go because practices aren’t that intense and a lot of different things are going on,” Knight told tomleachky.com. “In games there is a different mindset and different focus. I was impressed and things looked really well. We had been working hard in practice and it carried over into the games.”
Calipari has understandably downplayed the talk of how Knight compares to Wall. He stresses that both are different players and that’s why Calipari admits he’s still learning how this team will play best. Until (and if) Enes Kanter joins the mix, it’s clear UK will have to rely more on its point guard to score than was the case last year, and Calipari has said he’ll experiment with more pick-and-roll plays because of Knight.
Normally, Calipari eschews any motion that brings players together on the court in his Dribble Drive Motion Offense, but the coach also adapts his system to his players each year. Calipari said he’s noticed that Knight seems particularly good in those pick-and-roll situations, so that may lead to a tweaking of the system.
Knight knows he’ll have to tweak his game, too, and it didn’t take him long to understand that one of his favorite high school plays would not work so well at this level.
“In high school I was able to get to the rim a lot and shoot a lot of underhand layups,” Knight said. “Now, when you have a 7-footer coming to contest, you got to get higher. The thing right now is trying to shoot higher layups and get the ball higher and shoot every ball that I can.”
Some degree of leadership naturally falls onto the shoulders of whoever plays the point guard role, but with this young of a team, Calipari will have to count on Knight to be similar to Wall when it comes to being a take-charge player on the court.
Knight said he’s not normally a player who does much talking on the court, but he realizes his team will need him to step it up in that department.
“I was always in a leadership position but I was never a vocal leader,” Knight said. “I was always a guy who led by example. I did it and now you do it. Now I am becoming more of a vocal leader and a leader that does it by example. I am put into that role because no one else is very vocal. In high school, towards the end of my season, I started becoming very vocal because I was a senior and we had a pretty young team, so I had to be pretty vocal in that situation to lead some of the young guys to the right places and give them the right state of mind to be the right team.”
Knight said it’s easier to assume command when he’s on the court and involved in a game.
“It comes easy in the flow of the game,” Knight said. “When you have a guy in the wrong position, you can’t let them sit there and just use hand gestures. You must let them know, and when you see a mismatch, you need to let him know he needs to be posting. It comes with the flow of the game and knowing what you are talking about and being confident in yourself, then the vocals just open up.”
Any issues with speaking up to older players when he’s just a freshman?
“Not really because the guys know it is my job to do that and that coach will get on me if I don’t do that,” Knight said. “So I know it is my job to put them in the right places and they welcome stuff like that because it will help the team in the long run.”
This UK team doesn’t have the types of personalities that dominated last year’s squad, but Knight said a less demonstrative team is not necessarily a bad thing.
“We are a different team and different type of players and I think it is good that we are laid back,” Knight said. “We are trying to come together as a team and reach our main goal.”
Knight said his work ethic was instilled in him when he was a youngster by his parents. And Calipari knows that commitment to hard work makes it easier to assume a leadership role on the court.
“Of all the kids I’ve coached, I don’t know I’ve coached one with a larger work capacity –everything, weight room, academics, (etc),” Calipari said. “He respects the game. The other thing he does is he’ll get people involved.”
Knight can be a leader in the classroom, too. He had a 4.3 grade-point average in high school and might actually be able to graduate in two years because of the college-credit courses he took before ever enrolling at the University of Kentucky.
