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Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 04-07-2014, 02:21 PM:

He has come along way this year and his future looks bright.

Before they became teammates at Kentucky, Julius Randle had played against Dakari Johnson in camps and all-star games.

“Of course, you’ve seen him play through AAU and high school basketball, and I always knew that he was a great a player, a very skilled player in the post,” said Randle. “He was younger than me, but I knew he was still a really good player.

“Coming into Kentucky, he was my roommate, and I saw all the hard work he put in and the adversity he faced throughout the season. But he just kept fighting and never gave up. He’s been a really good player for us and a big reason why we are here today.”

Where Kentucky is now is ready to play for a national championship Monday night against Connecticut after losing nine regular-season games, including three of its last four.

Johnson had 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting and seven rebounds — and even got one assist — in 18 minutes battling Wisconsin center Frank Kaminsky. In the last three games, the freshman center is averaging 11 points and 5.3 rebounds per game and is 15-for-21 from the field.

“Dakari did a great job of guarding Kaminsky yesterday and everybody said he couldn’t do it, can’t move, he’s not fast enough. He’s fast. A lot of times he chooses not to be fast because it’s harder. But he’s fast. He’s quick enough. His feet move,” Calipari said. “But it’s really hard to do that when you’re seven foot — how much do you weigh?”

Johnson answered 260 pounds that brought laughter from Calipari.

“I’m proud of him,” the UK coach said.

Johnson said when Calipari finally made the players understand the value of concentrating on defense more than offense, the Cats took off and that has to be their focus Monday night.

“We know we are on a great run. We can cherish the wins we have, but we have one more left to finish,” Johnson said. “I think we just got tired of losing and once we listened to Coach, it changed for us. He told us not to focus on offense and then we started paying more attention to defense. Coach met with all of us and I think a lot of us were trying to do too much. Once we simpled it down, it helped all of us.

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