DeMarcus Cousins' one constant state: a great player

DeMarcus Cousins' one constant state: a great player

Eric Crawford link http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100110/COLUMNISTS02/1100333

LEXINGTON, Ky. — After last week's loss in Lexington, University of Louisville guard Edgar Sosa said this of University of Kentucky freshman DeMarcus Cousins: “He's a nutcase.”

Quantcast

On Saturday, after leading UK to a 76-68 victory over Georgia in the Wildcats' Southeastern Conference opener, Cousins was asked about that psychological scouting report.

“I would say that, too, I think,” Cousins said, smiling, wearing his Peter Parker horn-rimmed glasses with non-prescription glass, before quietly adding, “if I got stomped.”

Here's another thing you can say, regardless of your opinion of Cousins. Nutcase or not, he's crazy good.

He was this good on Saturday: At the end of the game, with a surprisingly persistent Georgia keeping things in doubt until the final minute, UK coach John Calipari had the ball going through Cousins' hands on every possession.

“We were throwing it to him every, single time,” Calipari said. “He's making free throws now. … If you can't make free throws we can't play through you because it's demoralizing to your team.

“But he's making free throws, so we throw it to him and he's making passes and got fouled a couple of other times where it was almost arm grabs. I told him he's just got to play through that. The only way they can stop him is grab his arms.”

Cousins shot just 51.4percent from the free-throw line in his first six games.

“I was a pretty good free-throw shooter in high school,” he said. “I don't know what happened. I guess it's the Cal effect.”

I guess you can rib your coach about such things when you've shot free throws at 76percent the past seven games. And when the coach has decided you're a guy he can count on, a guy who isn't going to lose his head every time he takes a hard foul.

For all the publicity he took for his altercation with UofL's Jared Swopshire, Cousins took more contact than he dished out on Saturday. He played a large part in fouling out three Georgia interior players and suggested after the game that they still got away with some.

“You look at my arms, they're pretty cut up,” he said.

Quantcast

When Cousins was in the game, UK outscored Georgia by 12. With him out, Georgia outscored UK by four. Cousins had seven points, two rebounds and a steal in the final 4:49.

After saying that Patrick Patterson would be the go-to guy in such situations early in the season, Calipari now is looking to Cousins. Lexington Herald-Leader reporter Jerry Tipton made that point in a postgame question asking Calipari why that was.

“Because he's getting it done,” Calipari said. “You won't believe this, Jerry — I want to win. Nothing else matters to me. I'm trying to win a ballgame.”

Calipari has shown that he is going to ride the hot hands. Late in the game Saturday, it was the freshmen again. John Wall and Cousins combined for the last 11 points. Eric Bledsoe stood up in the huddle and demanded the defensive assignment on Georgia's Travis Leslie.

UK trailed 47-46 with 13:36 left in the game when Cousins was fouled inside and his headband was knocked off. A teammate picked it up and handed it back to him, and Cousins flung it to the sideline.

The Rupp Arena crowd responded, “Oooooh.” And Patterson said he knew then that Georgia was in trouble.

“When you knock off his headband, he goes from ‘DeMarcus' to ‘Cousins,'” Patterson said. “It's like you wake the sleeping giant. It's happened two times now, and both times, he's come out and you've seen the real DeMarcus.”

Headband, headcase, whatever. When Cousins keeps his head, UK has a good chance of handing its opponents theirs.