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Kentucky Basketball never really flirted with Flory Bidunga when he decided to leave Kansas, but Louisville shelled out quite a bit of money to land the talented big man. Part of Kentucky’s reasoning was that they were going to return Malachi Moreno, even though he flirted with the NBA.
Thankfully, Moreno eventually came back, and now, he could be one of the best big men in college basketball next season.
One analyst thinks Moreno may end up being better than Bidunga.
When discussing Moreno on the Field of 68, Rob Dauster said, “I’m gonna plant my flag on Moreno island and say he’ll be better this season than Flory Bidunga. I’m betting on a Malachi Moreno breakout season.”
Looking at the stats, he may be right.
Malachi Moreno may have a breakout year
As a freshman, Moreno struggled at times with the physicality of the game. To be fair, he probably wasn’t planning on playing such a key role yet. Jayden Quaintance and Brandon Garrison should have gobbled up most of the minutes, and Moreno could have developed his body to adjust to the college game. But Garrison was ineffective too often, and Quaintance only played in 4 games.
All told, Moreno tallied 7.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.5 blocks, and 1.3 turnovers a game on 58.2% shooting. Not huge numbers, especially compared to Bidunga.
Bidunga averaged 13.3 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.6 blocks, 1.5 assists, and 1.5 turnovers a game on 64% shooting. But looking back at his freshman season, Flory averaged 5.9 points and 5.4 rebounds a night. Actually worse than what Moreno put up as a freshman.
Also, Moreno only logged 22.6 minutes per game last season compared to 31.6 for Bidunga.
Where can Malachi Moreno improve?
The biggest areas for improvement are Moreno’s body, strength, and hands. As a freshman, Moreno was put in the wash a couple of times against physical centers on the defensive end. He came to Kentucky weighing 250 pounds, but at the NBA Combine, that was down to 242. You may think that’s a net negative, but dropping fat while building muscle is something that a lot of players do once they get on a college weight program.
For Malachi to have lost 8 pounds is actually a sign that he is taking his body seriously, and I suspect his physicality will improve quite a bit.
His hands have to get better after struggling with a lot of catchers as a freshman. That can be taught, and I suspect he is working on that now and will do so all summer long. If just those two things improve, Moreno will see a drastic improvement.
But that’s not the only area where he can get a lot better.
Malachi turned the ball over too much in a Mark Pope offense. Pope loves playing an inverted center at the top of the key and letting him make passes to cutters off different actions. Last season, when it worked, it often led to wins. When Moreno had more than 4 assists, Kentucky was 3-2, and those two losses were a combined 8 points to Auburn and Florida.
If Moreno can pass even halfway like Amari Williams did, you have 4 shooters who all shot over 38% from deep (Kam Williams, Justin McBride, Milan Momcilovic, and Jerone Morton), and two guards in Alex Wilkins and Zoom Diallo who are great in the paint. If he can get to 3.5 assists a game, that would be huge for this team.
Now, all we can do is wait to see how big a jump Moreno makes in year 2, but he already has some fans out there.
What do you think? Will we see a big jump from Malachi?
Originally published on sports.yahoo.com — View original