The House of Blue

Can you imagine when he gains 25 more pounds and gets stronger. He will be the best 4 man in the game and a lottery pick in my opinion

At the start of the season he seemed to think about it for a second before he shot the ball.. Now he just catches the ball and shoots it without thinking about it and you can see his confidence growing..

I am not sure what his potentials are.

He has improved dramatically in terms of confidence throughout the season. Like poster above said, he shoots the ball without thinking. Now, i think he thinks that he will make every shot. I like that.

I want to see how much he develop physically. I know he will never be super athlete that's common in NBA, but if he works at it, he might be a capable player and can make it to lottery.

His fundamental is really nice, his efficiency in offense right now is very good. Like the fake 3, dribble penetrate, and shoots a MID RANGE SHOT. <- that was nice against Vandy.

Right now he is too weak to handle SEC center. He is too slow to guard SEC PF/SF. In terms of his height, he needs to become a legit PF in order to be lottery pick in NBA. Meaning, he's got to work on the footwork area.

Sorry Bluedynasty, but i have to disagree.

1. Jorts didn't need to add strength, he needed to lose some weight. He had extremely wide body that took up space, and with his wide hips he moved players around, allowing him to get offensive rebound. Similar to Cousin actually, just not as physically gifted.

2. Wiltjer understands basketball probably better than any one on the team. What he lacks is strength and quickness to react to the speed of the game. This will improve with time, and him getting more athletic.

3. He already understand what he is capable, and to me if physically improved, he will be outstanding and efficient. I will go as far to say he is more efficient player than Lamb and Davis if he had the body to move the way he needed to.

He will need to do these 3 things,
1. Adding explosiveness -> improving flexibility and strength.
2. Improving Defense, always the most important thing for Coach Cal.
3. Improving ball-handling, for dribble drive he looks a bit weird, and seems to almost always look like he might lose the ball.

Cal said he was still growing too. This kid may be the best four year player in the country by the time it's all said and done. Could be the college version of Dirk.

I can't wait to see his improvement from year one to year two, but I think the thing that makes him so unique and intriguing is how much room his game has for growth between his frosh year and his senior year. Some players can dominate because of their athletic ability and they don't have to fully develop their games...so it takes them into their NBA careers to do it. I think Kyle will develop a piece of his game each year and just keep getting better and better. He obviously has a ceiling in the pros because of his athletic ability, but in college he can be truly dominate (first team AA) by his Sr. year.

This offensive, if he can just get stronger/quicker/explosive, which isn't hard

He can get into all-SEC second team, at least.

His offensive abilities are already one of the best on this current team, it's just his defensive abilities is worst by far of top 7 players.

Agree with WildcatGG24... I think Cal missed a big opportunity there. They clearly could have used him, regardless of defensive concerns.

He reminds me a lot of Mike Dunleavy. I can see him as a small forward at the next level if he can improve his handle and passing a little bit.

Agree. It's one of those give-to-get deals. Coaches are stubborn creatures of habit when it comes to that. Reminds me of Tubby when he would try to press (liked it as much as Cal likes to zone) and the other team would score ONE basket, and he'd call it off, even if the Cats had scored 3-4 transition hoops.

Always credited Pitino for understanding that the press was going to allow a few easy buckets by nature, but it was going to produce many, many more with the type of athletes UK had.

The discussion isn't about UK's defense per se. It's about how you can hide/mask some of Wiltjers defensive liabilities in order to exploit his offensive skills. If Cal plays only man to man, then Wiltjer's time on the court will be limited because he eventually gets exploited on defense. It's at least worthy of discussion.

Kyle needs 2 things that would help him immensely, and fortunately , he could logically gain one of them in 2 seconds. He needs strength and all kinds of it, especially core strength. What he could do right now is play MEAN. That alone would make him 95% better on the boards and on defense. Get mean Kyle and see how much stronger you get. He looks like a spring bunny out there far too often.

Wiltjer hasn't been playing as much because Davis and Jones have been playing so well. He usually subs for Davis around the 8 minute mark in the first half for a couple of minutes and gets Jones 4 minutes or so per half. That adds up to his 10 minutes a game.

With the way Jones was playing in the second half of the sec tournament it's hard to justify giving Wiltjer extended minutes.