New pick-and-roll may be latest wrinkle
in John Calipari’s dribble-drive offense

University of Kentucky basketball fans have become used to slight variations in head coach John Calipari’s dribble-drive offense, and this season will be no different.

“You’ve got to settle on something at some point of how you’re going to play,” Calipari said. “But what I’m finding out is the pick-and-roll with this team has really been interesting.”

In previous years, Calipari said he felt the pick-and-roll would hurt his personnel by decreasing the emphasis on strong driving point guards like John Wall, Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans.

“Now we’re a little bit different. Mainly because as we attack we have the players in there we do want to get the ball to and we do want to create space,” he said. “We’re using the pick-and-roll to get into the dribble drive. So instead of just coming down and just starting, we’re doing it off the pick-and-roll.”

The current group of Wildcats aren’t sure what style of play they’ll feature the season yet, but senior guard Darius Miller said they should be able to excel in several styles.

“We’ve been going dribble-drive — a lot of that — pick-and-roll, posting up,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do, how we’re going to play, but it’s going to be fun to watch.”

The competition in practice has helped elevate Miller’s and his teammate’s play, he said.

“We have great matchups going on every day,” he said. “If you don’t compete, you’re going to get embarrassed out here. We’re all going extremely hard, trying to get better, and I feel like we’re becoming a better team because of it.”

For Calipari, the questions about the team’s style this season are outweighed by the constants from one year to the next.

“I know we’re going to play hard, we’re going to be unselfish, we’re going to be a great team from offense to defense and then a great team from defense to offense,” he said. “We’re going to be our brother’s keeper, we’ll do it together and you’re going to have fun watching us. Short of that, we’re just trying to figure it all out right now.”

UK Athletics photo by Chet White.

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The UK men’s basketball team will take the Rupp Arena court Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the annual Blue-White scrimmage.