When it comes to the veterans who have helped propel Kentucky back to the Final Four, DeAndre Liggins has made the most of an opportunity he wasn’t expected to get.
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Perhaps the trepidation was warranted, especially considering Liggins aspires to pattern his game after Ron Artest and plays with the same passion. Liggins refused to enter the second half of a game as a freshman under former coach Billy Gillispie, and he was suspended for nine games at the start of last year.
“When I first took the job, the first thing out of everybody — you have to get rid of DeAndre,” Wildcats coach John Calipari said last week. “That’s what they said to us.”
A few breaths before in the same news conference — the day before Kentucky’s Sweet 16 win over Ohio State — Calipari predicted that Liggins would make shots, and Brandon Knight’s game-winner against the Buckeyes came only after Liggins extended Kentucky’s slim lead to 60-57 with 36 seconds remaining.
Calipari then rewarded Liggins with his first start of the NCAA tournament against North Carolina — a place he had lost to freshman Doron Lamb late in the season — and got a dagger 3-pointer to help put the Tar Heels away.
“He defends. He is unselfish. He makes plays. His skills are improved,” Calipari said afterward. “You know, he and Josh, all these guys but especially him, I’m really proud — and I am on him now. I am on him to do the right things, and if he screws up, he knows he will be there. But he performs. He is not afraid. He is making plays.”
