Kentucky beat Georgetown College, 121-52, in an exhibition game last night, and Georgetown College coach Chris Briggs got a little carried away afterward.
Briggs, via Larry Vaught of The Advocate Messenger:
Kentucky coach John Calipari – who knows a little something about how much talent his team has – dismissed the notion as hyperbole.
I hear Coach Briggs got excited after the game last night. Let me be clear: If we played ANY NBA team, we would get buried. ANY.
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) November 10, 2014
There’s absolutely no question: Kentucky wouldn’t come close to making the NBA playoffs.
Every once in a while, usually with Kentucky lately, we debate whether a college team could beat an NBA team. The safe and mostly correct answer is a resounding no.
But could this year’s 76ers be bad enough to change the verdict?
The typical response to the debate is that a great college team has a few NBA-caliber players and an NBA team has 15. But how many 76ers would be in the NBA right now if Philadelphia weren’t tanking? It’s rare even the worst teams build a roster like this.
ESPN’s Kevin Pelton projected just six 76ers would finish perform better this season than a replacement-level player: Michael Carter-Williams, Nerlens Noel, Henry Sims, Tony Wroten, K.J. McDaniels and Chris Johnson.
Meanwhile, Kentucky has the Nos. 3, 10, 19, 30, 32, 33, 37, 39 and 43 prospects in the DraftExpress rankings. Of course, that doesn’t mean six of Karl Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Dakari Johnson, Andrew Harrison, Marcus Lee, Aaron Harrison, Devin Booker, Alex Poythress and Trey Lyles would fare positively in the NBA right now. But that’s an impressive amount of depth for a college team.
I’d definitely pick the 76ers over Kentucky right now, but before making definitive judgments, let’s see a little more of both teams in action.
