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Darius Miller To The NBA In 2011?

Posted: Jun 28, 2010 5:50 PM by Alan Cutler
Updated: Jun 28, 2010 6:03 PM

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Memories to last a lifetime. Think of where Eric Bledsoe came from. Going from poverty to an instant millionaire. Something no one thought could happen after one year at UK. NBA Draft night for Calipari has lots of memories.

"Five families and five players who have realized their dreams and we were connected to that," says Calipari. "That we have helped create hope for their families. And obviously they did it but we were part of it.

"The call with Eric Bledsoe. He's screaming, I'm screaming, his mom is screaming. It was just incredible."

Darius Miller in the NBA in 2011?

"Right now everyone is talking about Darius and it's ridiculous. You see Darius could put himself in a position at the end of next year that he is making a decision and maybe DeAndre (Liggins) the same deal."

That's a WOW!

"And the other biggest surprise right now is Josh Harrellson. He went to China and they were stunned about how good he is. Right now the weight strength and our people say he is on a mission. So, all of a sudden you have a 6-10 guy and you say he didn't play last year. He played behind two first round draft picks. No kidding. So we are looking at this, it's going to be good."

The word of the day for Cal in his SEC media call was "excited."

"I'm excited about the future. I'm excited about the future for our league. I think we have three teams in the top ten. It's all good stuff. But, I'm excited about it."

"The returning team, I'm excited about. We've got 9 of them on campus now. They are training with our weight strength. They are playing pickup. Great kids. You go from Brandon (Knight) who comes in with almost a year of academic credit before he goes to one class. You have Doron Lamb and Stacey Poole, great kids and are going to add depth and strength to our guard play. Terrance Jones is going to be one of those unique players a long with Eloy (Vargas) and Enes (Kanter) who gives us size."

Cal has been telling every media type that for as long as he coaches, he's going to be playing with young teams. Dealing with the freshman last year helped set Cal up for this years team.

"The biggest thing is they got to be good people who respect each other and want each other to do well. You can't come to Kentucky if you want to be the only guy who can play. Go somewhere else. You can not play here because there is going to be 8 or 9 guys who will be on a mission the same as you. You have to be there for each other. If one guy is having great success for 2 or 3 weeks, you have to be happy. If he slips you have to try and be there to pick him up. You got to try and tell him it's going to be okay. Those are the kind of things you have to have."

This is the other point Cal is not only pushing hard, but expect him to say the same thing this fall on media day, when the season is right in front of us.

"The lesson I think at the end of the day is you can win a lot of games, you can win leagues and do that but those last three games with a young team, the anxiety of never being in the Final Four, the anxiety of not knowing how it's playing out, the anxiety in our case of going 0 for 20 and never being in that position because they never played enough seasons. If they had been with me for three seasons, there would have been a game or two where we started 0 for 20 and figured out a way to win. But we were just too young. We started breaking down defensively. My point is, with a young team, what do we have to do to give ourselves a chance to win."

And when Cal says win, he's talking about the NCAA Championship which is the 4 million dollar question. When Cal figures that part out, he will put his first banner up in Rupp.

Topics: John Calipari, Darius Miller, Kentucky Basketball, Eric Bledsoe, Brandon Knight

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