Apologies for being away from the blog today. Graduation ceremonies for the University of Kentucky took me away for the majority of the morning and afternoon.

The news of the day while I was gone was obviously the decision of freshmen Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton to keep their names in the NBA Draft and forego their remaining eligibility at UK.

What would have seemed like a huge blow a month ago has really come as no surprise. I think fans could see this decision coming for the last two weeks, and from inside the UK athletics department, just about everyone knew Bledsoe and Orton would not be back.

The UK men’s basketball team knew as much as it has been busy recruiting for the losses of all five underclassmen (Bledsoe, Orton, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson). UK has already locked up four top-50 signees in Enes Kanter, Brandon Knight, Doron Lamb and Stacey Poole.

I think it would be unrealistic to think those four signees are going to come in and make up for the 83.3 percent of scoring UK will lose from this past year, but the news that Bledsoe and Orton are gone certainly isn’t the end of the one-year progress head coach John Calipari has made.