By LARRY VAUGHT
(LEXINGTON, Ky.)-Is playing a challenging non-conference schedule against Michigan State, Louisville, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Indiana and St. John’s the best way for coach Mark Pope to prepare his team for a successful season?
“Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that, and you never know until you know,” said former UK player Darius Miller, a key performer on UK’s 2012 national title team. “We could have come out and played great, maybe not had injuries, and that could have changed a bunch of things. But I will say this, I think by playing these teams early on we’re learning a lot of lessons early on that we won’t have to fix later in the season.
“I’m hoping that this can give us momentum, give us the answers that we needed to figure out pretty early what needs to be fixed. I have a lot of faith in coach Pope. He’s like a mad scientist. I know he’s figuring out everything that we need to work on in order to improve.”
Miller said to win a national championship, Kentucky has to be able to beat teams like the ones it is playing in November and December. Pope’s team got its first significant win of the season last week when it beat Indiana. Now UK gets to prove it can do it again Saturday against St. John’s in Atlanta.
“I think seeing where we are, where we stand early and having time to fix whatever we need to fix to gain that momentum and then to strike around February or March, that’s not bad at all,” Miller said. “I feel like we have the opportunity to do that by playing these teams early on so we get to see where we’re at.
“We get to see what we need to work on and fix and hopefully we can still gain that momentum by tournament time. I really do still believe in Pope and hope the fans will stick with this team because sometimes it just takes longer to get things right than it does other years.”
(Vicky Graff Photo)
