Pilgrim's progress?

According to cyber-reports, and a couple of ink-stained ones, a 6-foot-8 forward (loosely) from Hampton University in Virginia visited the UK campus yesterday. Name is Matthew Pilgrim. Cincinnati is his hometown. And he’s looking to transfer.

He averaged 7.7 points and 5.2 rebounds, playing 19.8 minutes per game last year as a sophomore for the Pirates. He actually averaged 11 points and 24 minutes a game as a freshman. (Red flag?)

Wherever Pilgrim might choose to take his game, he’ll have to sit out a year. Some predict he’ll be a Wildcat by next week.

This leads me to the following comment from Ralph a couple of posts back: “I think Gillispie knows he's in for another rough couple of years and is looking for a little more good news to use when incredulous fans go berserk.”

That hits on something I have always thought about fans in general, but Kentucky basketball fans in particular.

They want a reason to believe.

Truth be told, Billy Gillispie’s recruiting class for next season looks good, not great. Things don’t always turn out the way they look, of course. Could be better. Could be worse. I like Darius Miller. Like his game. Think he can play. I’ll feel better about DeAndre Liggins when he makes his grades. Have heard mixed reports on Kevin Galloway. And fellow juco Josh Harrellson has size and three years of college remaining. That’s about all any of us knows. Rivals ranks the class 19th, one spot ahead of (guess who) Minnesota.

But I don’t think Kentucky fans are obsessing about the lack of superstars on next year’s freshmen list because Billy G. always seems to be lining up players for down the road. The infamous eighth-grader. The ninth-grader from Ohio. Add those to the three or four or 34 futures he picked up last summer. Lost in all the hub-bubb (lovable word) is that Billy G. secured a pretty significant commitment in Dominique Ferguson, a possible top 10 recruit in the class of 2010. The noise generated by Michael Avery’s commitment has distracted us from Ferguson.*

(Rivals’ Jerry Meyer gives a run-down, with opinions, on all of UK’s commitments in this mailbag post.)

But back to my theory. You remember Tubby Smith’s last year. Wasn’t that long ago. Tubby was recruiting Patrick Patterson. My contention was/is if Smith had been able to pick up a commitment from Patterson in-season, more UK fans would have been willing to give the coach a break. They would have complained, yes. They would have criticized, yes. But the tone would have been different, because landing Patterson would have brought hope for the future. A reason to believe things were going to get better.

But as Jerry Claiborne used to say, “That’s that old ‘iffin game.”

It’s a big if as to whether any of these new or possibly new players, including a possible transfer from the MEAC, i.e. Matthew Pilgrim – remember Heshimu Evans transferred to UK from Manhattan -- are going to return Kentucky basketball to the promised land.

But Billy G. keeps putting out reasons to believe they might.

* The current Sports Illustrated, the print edtion, Danica Patrick on the cover, makes Avery’s commitment the lead item in its “Players” section, with a less-than-flattering cartoon.

Comments

[Kentucky Monkee]

Since when will UK basketball fans be happy to hear someone transferred to the program from Hampton University. Even at that non-powerhouse he only averaged 7.7 points.

I look at it from a totally different perspective. When the cupboard is so bare that UK is happy to have a player transfer in with such a weak pedigree, there's trouble in Thoroughbred City, with a capital T and that rhymes with D and that stands for desperate.

[Mike]

John,
Come on now, lets leave the talent evaluation for the coaches. I guess media not doing research these days is the norm but if you did, you would know the potential of Matt Pilrim being a future NBA player. You look at rankings and determine how good a player is without remebering that the coach at the University of Kentucky, who makes a ton of money to evaluate talent wanted that player. Look back to Texas A&M and see where those players were ranked, then remember how good they turned out to be. If its a hightly ranked prospect you want then I guess you forgot to mention Jon Hood who is now ranked in the top 20. We all know you guys at the LHL have your agenda's but please dont make it obvious by talking about something you have no idea about.