Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: Isaac Humphries Likely to Enroll at Kentucky for 2015-16 by James Fitzgerald

Everyone saw the knee injury that cut Kentucky senior forward Alex Poythress’s season short, and it devastated us.

You can only imagine how it made Alex Poythress feel.

This young man had to sit on the sideline while his Kentucky teammates chased an undefeated season, watched his team come up short in the Final Four when they lost to Wisconsin, and had to put off his NBA aspirations for another year while he watched all his teammates grab hats at the NBA draft from Adam Silver.

He was barely into the 2014-15 season, only eight games in to the year when he tore the ACL in his left knee ending his season.

Since December 10th of 2014, which was the date of the injury, it has been an emotional roller coaster for the 6-foot-8, 238 pound, power forward.

Poythress’s junior year was supposed to be about winning a championship and boosting his draft stock, not surgery and rehab. That kind of thing can mess with your head and it sounds like it did mess with him a little bit based on this quote from Kyle Turner’s courier-journal.com article, but faith and support pulled him through.

“It was real hard, because that’s everybody’s dream to go on to the next level. That’s what you’re supposed to do. We were supposed to go out on top and all leave together. But unfortunate things happen, so you just gotta live with it. Things happen for a reason. God has a plan for me, and I’m just trying to run out that plan.“

Part of that plan is to show that no matter what circumstances may come in an attempt to derail and discourage you, you simply dust yourself off and grind even harder to achieve the goal you have for yourself.

Poythress admitted in that same post that it was going to be a tough road to get back to being able to run up and down the floor, but that is all part of the grind when it comes to rehabbing an ACL injury.

Alex Poythress has been cleared to play since those statements though he has not started practicing yet, and John Calipari has huge plans for him in his senior year.

From observing the NBA, Calipari understands that the landscape has changed to where teams don’t necessarily have big “Land Cruiser” power forwards running up and down the floor any more.

Small ball reigns supreme and it is all about spacing the floor offensively. The stretch forward is en vogue now.

(Photo: Mark Zerof, USA TODAY Sports)

As a small forward Poythress averaged 11.2 points and 6.0 rebounds his freshman year, 5.9 points and 4.5 rebounds his sophomore year, and 5.5 points and 3.8 rebounds in his injury shortened junior year.

His minutes diminished each year, but that was because of the influx of talent that needed to get on the floor and not because of his performance.

Plus, he was playing the small forward spot for UK because when he first arrived on campus, his stature translated more into being a prototypical NBA swingman. Things have changed some since.

Now, Coach Calipari envisions Alex Poythress wearing that “stretch four” tag in the 2015-16 Wildcats’ season which will make his game translate better to the next level.

The thought process of why John Calipari feels that Poythress can make the transition was laid out in this quote on kentucky.com

“When I recruited Alex … in the NBA, he had to be a three, couldn’t play a four. What’s happened now, the NBA has gone to small ball, and he’s way big enough to be a four. As a matter of fact, some teams are playing fives (centers) that are his size. It’s crazy. So now, he’s more natural. We were trying to push him to the three, even though it wasn’t the greatest thing for our team, it’s what was right for him. Well, the thing has just changed. It’s been in flux, and now all of a sudden he can do it.”

This minor adjustment could be the thing that enhances Alex Poythress’s NBA hoop dreams.

If we are honest about his draft situation as he goes into the 2015-16 season the ACL injury has dropped his stock significantly.

What he needs to prove to the NBA and more importantly to himself is that his knee is healthy and he has no reservations about his capabilities on that knee while he plays.

That all happens with him putting together a solid senior campaign.

If he puts together a strong season, and more importantly, gets out of his senior year injury free, we can start serious conversations about his NBA prospects again.

But there is no need to put the cart before the horse. Right now we just want to see Alex Poythress come back from his injury stronger than ever and have a successful senior campaign.

Everything else will take care of itself.