Bledsoe Running Away With Unexpected Opportunity

Imagine that your company is holding this huge showcase at the convention center.  Thousands of people are going to be there, and your boss has given you a role in the event, albeit a minor one. 

Shortly after you arrive at the venue however, you discover a major change to your role.  On the schedule of events, your name is now listed as the emcee for the showcase instead of your company vice president.  You will now be responsible for making sure that all the presentations run smoothly and seamlessly.

Not exactly the way you would want to make your company-sponsored public speaking debut, right?

Well, that's sort of what happened this week to Eric Bledsoe, who made his first career NBA start with just a couple of hours notice Monday against San Antonio.

Considering the circumstances, not much was expected of the Clippers rookie point guard except from Bledsoe himself.


foxsportswest.com: Bledsoe Makes Most Of His Chance

UK Freshman Class The Best of All Time? Hold Your Horses, Hoss

I just stumbled across a post on Bleacher Report suggesting that Kentucky's incoming freshman class may be the best college basketball recruiting class ever assembled. Here's an excerpt:

"Though they lack a popular nickname for now (Scintillating or Super Sextet, Big Blue Babies, and Kentucky's Kids are the suggestion's I'm throwing out there), Kentucky's young guns are going to be almost impossible to stop from day one.

John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins are arguably the two best freshmen in the country and Eric Bledsoe, Daniel Orton, and Jon Hood aren't too far behind. Also, small forward Darnell Dodson is one of the best JUCO transfers in the country."

Now, I have never been one to rate how good players are until they prove how good they are on the collegiate level. We have all seen several so-called hoop phenoms fall way short of their expectations once they make the leap from high school to college. Thus, reminding us that prior success does not always dictate future success.

So again, before we starting anointing the 2009 UK Freshman class as the best of all time, how about we let them prove their ranking first?


Road to The Final Four: 10 Teams Relying Heavily on Freshmen | Bleacher Report

Eric Bledsoe Signs With UK; John Wall Decision Not Expected Until May 20th

As UK coaches had hoped and expected, Eric Bledsoe signed his national letter-of-intent Wednesday. He's going to be a Wildcat.

This signing fills a huge void at the point guard position. Considered to be one of the top 3 players at that spot in the 2009 class, Bledsoe can step into a starting role immediately.

The other benefit of this signing is that it makes the possibility of Kentucky not landing John Wall a little easier to swallow. John Calipari definitely wants both, but if he only ends up with Bledsoe, it's definitely not the end of the world.

Now, don't get me wrong. UK is still very hopeful that Wall will sign with the Cats as well, but they fully expect it to be a battle all the way to the end.

Calipari and his staff believe that Wall, his mother, and his AAU coach Brian Clifton all feel comfortable with Kentucky and that the program would be a great place for Wall to expedite his journey to the NBA, but when it comes to recruiting, nothing is a given.

As far as when to expect a decision from Wall goes, the UK coaches are working under the assumption that it won't come until the very end of the signing period: May 20th.

UK Recruiting Update On Bledsoe And Wall

As I have stated several times, I am not a big fan of reporting on college recruiting.  I think it's often way too much about possibly very little.  Only a handful of 5-star recruits go on to be top-level talent in the college ranks, and even fewer carry that pedigree to the NBA.

And since it's almost like a crap shoot trying to figure out which kid will be ultimately live up to and eventually exceed his recruiting hype, I don't go out of my way to follow the decision-making process of the nation's top recruits.  

Plus, they're kids!  They change their minds more often than Lindsay Lohan changes her sexual orientation!!

However, when I first started this blog, I promised to give my readers as much inside information as I could share.  Thus, here's what I know about a couple of UK recruits.

Let's start with Eric Bledsoe.  As most of you have heard, he is expected to announce his college choice Wednesday.  I read somewhere that it's down to either Memphis or Kentucky.  I can tell you that the UK coaches are feeling rather confident that Bledsoe will choose UK.  Maybe it's because the only reason Bledsoe is even considering Memphis is because John Calipari was recruiting him when he was coaching there, and former Calipari assistant, Josh Pastner, is the new coach of the Tigers.

Adam Zagoria quoted Bledsoe as saying that he will not base his decision on whether John Wall chooses UK or not.

"I’m going to play my position either if he do go or he don’t," said Bledsoe, who is fully aware that Wall is Kentucky's top choice.

Bledsoe thinks he and Wall would be great together on the floor, and believe me, UK would love to find out and happily sign both of them.

The other big UK recruiting news involves Wall being charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering after police found him walking out of a vacant house in his hometown of Raleigh.  I have been assured that the incident sounds a lot worse than it really is.

Wall did something he shouldn't have done, but I am told that his intentions going into the house were not malicious, and perhaps more importantly, it will not stop UK from recruiting him.  However, that may not be the case for Wall's other pursuers.

There are those within the Kentucky program that are actually hoping this incident will cause Duke to back off its recruitment of Wall.  The thought being that Mike Krzyzewski wouldn't want to do anything to call into question his program's squeaky clean image.

As far as North Carolina is concerned, Roy Williams hasn't exactly seemed eager to sign Wall in the first place.  He hasn't even offered him a scholarship.  Williams and Wall's AAU coach Brian Clifton do not get along at all.

However, it is believed that Wall is not willing to distance himself from Clifton in order to get an offer to UNC.  Clifton has filled a void in Wall's life since the passing of his father.  

If it were not for Wall having grown up in Raleigh, some UK insiders believe that he would have already signed with Kentucky, calling it "a no-brainer."

As far as their confidence level of signing Wall is concerned, it's about 50/50.  If Calipari has a feeling either way, he's not tipping his hand, and considering how his Derby picks turned out, that might be a good idea.