Patterson To Kentucky

Looks like Patrick Patterson has decided on Kentucky, which is a bit of a surprise to me. I figured he would follow Jai Lucas to Florida. This decision shows me that the Patterson family wasnt sold on Billy Donovan staying at Florida and I agree with them.

Billy G gets his first big recruit and he will fit in nicely with the departure of Randolph Morris to the Knicks. I knew Patterson wasnt going to Duke a long time ago so this doesnt come as a shock to me. However, the shock is Kentucky. Once Tubby Smith left and Patterson's mom went off on the alumni, I figured it was between Duke and Florida. Give Billy G credit. He immediately got in touch with him, developed a full-fledged plan for him and promised him 16-20 shots a game. Although I don't approve of selling a recruit on the number of shots you're going to get, he did what he had to and landed a big-time recruit.

So, Duke is now faced with the worst case scenario BRB set forth after the heartbreaking VCU loss: they lost McRoberts to the NBA and Patterson didn't come to Durham. What does this mean? Well, for starters, you have to believe Duke wont have any transfers now. The only possible transfer to me is Marty Pocius but it looks like he'll be sticking around despite a log jam at his position. So, this means that they need the combo of Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek, and David McClure to be huge next year. Also, this means they will be running a number of small sets with basically 4 guards and a forward. I think the offense will be much more fluid this year with the addition of Singler, King, and Smith and with Gerald Henderson almost certainly gaining a much bigger role in the offense. Their problem will be defensively. Say whatever you want about McRoberts and the lack of chemistry between him and the rest of the team, he played some great defense with the departure of the Landlord.

I, for one, believe that Lance Thomas will have a breakout season this year. You saw glimmers at the beginning of the season but for a variety of reasons, they got nothing from Thomas last year except some amusing defense. To be honest, I'm not sure about Zoubek. All indications at the beginning of last year was that he would be a big-time contributor in year 1. He was not.

If Zoubek is as good as people made him out to be entering Duke than the finger has to be pointed at the coach. There hasn't been a better coach in history but I don't subscribe to the "they went small so we couldn't play him" theory. Look where that got the Dallas Mavericks. Don't let inferior teams dictate your style, you're Duke! You dictate the style.

Good luck to Patterson. I wish he would've went to Duke but I'd rather him go to Kentucky than Florida because Donovan is all over the NBA right now and was going to screw him over. I can feel it. And remember, we beat out Florida and Rutgers for Thomas at the deadline last year so you can't win them all.