Eric Bledsoe lives for challenges.
Whether it’s the underdog mentality of the road, the pressure of being away from home or the adversity of thousands of fans hoping he fails, there’s something about the road that lights a fire in Bledsoe’s eyes.
“I like playing on the road a lot because the fans go crazy when the No. 2 team in the county goes into their gym and everybody will be wondering what John (Wall) is going to do,” Bledsoe said. “Then that is when everybody else steps up.”
Bledsoe doesn’t mind the attention his best friend and fellow guard Wall is getting. While Wall has become the face of the UK program, it hasn’t diminished the effectiveness or the accomplishments Bledsoe has put together in a much overlooked and impressive freshman campaign.
“John, he deserves (the attention),” Bledsoe said. “He doesn’t do nothing but try to help us win.”
But Kentucky probably would not have won as much – or be undefeated – without the services of Bledsoe this season. When Kentucky has needed a player to step up the most, it’s often times been Bledsoe who has shined the brightest.
When the Cats played their much-anticipated season opener in November without Wall, who was suspended one game by the NCAA, Bledsoe handled the point guard duties and scored a then-career high of 24 points on 7-of-14 shooting.
In UK’s only two true road games of the year, he’s been the team’s leading scorer, averaging 24.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists in front of two hostile crowds in Bloomington, Ind., and Gainesville, Fla.
And when Georgia guard Travis Leslie was scoring at will against the Cats in a seesaw affair last weekend, Bledsoe was the first and only player in the huddle to volunteer to guard him, according to freshman forward DeMarcus Cousins.
“I think Eric always steps up when we need him to,” sophomore guard Darius Miller said. “When we’re down or when we need a bucket, that’s when Eric is at his best.”
Kentucky isn’t short on talent, but it is still developing the proper winning mentality, especially on the road. If there is a bone to pick with this team, it is its inconsistency and inability to put teams away when they’re on the ropes.
As Calipari said Wednsday, “On the road, they don’t get it.”
If all the players mirrored the junkyard dog mentality of Bledsoe, as Calipari would tell it, that wouldn’t be much of a problem.
For some reason, when the stakes are at its highest and his back is against the wall, Bledsoe plays better.
“I like to see kids emotional, and he’s one of those that will say something and back it up,” Calipari said. “He’s a little different soul, that young man.”
Calipari said he isn’t concerned about any potential jealously coming in between Wall and Bledsoe, self-described “brothers,” for one’s spotlight and the others lack of attention. That wedge in the relationship has not shown this year.
“He loves John,” Calipari said of Bledsoe’s relationship with Wall. “You can’t separate them. You can’t say that he’s faster, a better shooter and runs a better point guard thinking that will affect those two. Those two are brothers. One would get mad that the guy said it. It just doesn’t work.”
If anything, one man’s attention has become another man’s gain.
“It was real fun (at Florida) because all five of their players were sagging on John to try to keep him from penetrating,” said Bledsoe, who is averaging 11.3 points and 3.1 assists this season. “That left me to penetrate and get bodies in and let everybody else do what they can do.”
As soft spoken as he is camera shy — he’s a man of few words once the cameras kick on and the recorders start taping — Bledsoe seems to relish the lack of national exposure.
But while Bledsoe doesn’t mind the national exposure Wall is getting, he said it does motivate him once he steps on the court.
“Because everybody on my team knows what I can do,” Bledsoe said. “They just tell me to take my man because everybody is trying to see what John can do.”
Maybe – and that’s a big maybe – most of the attention will be focused on Bledsoe in Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum on Saturday at 4 p.m. when Bledsoe makes his first return to his native state, and more importantly, when the Cats face an up-and-down Auburn team.
Bledsoe, a Birmingham, Ala., native will play in front of several friends and family members, including his grandmother and mother.
“I play a lot better when my mom is there,” Bledsoe said.
It will also be a chance to show Auburn, a school that surprisingly never offered one of its state’s best players a scholarship, according to Bledsoe, what they missed out on. Bledsoe, despite an “on and off” relationship with Auburn in high school, won’t make redemption a focus of Saturday’s game.
“I’m not worried about it,” Bledsoe said.
In the shadow of his freshman teammates, few things seem to worry or rattle Bledsoe.
