Kentucky announces 7-foot center Zvonimir Ivisic is officially on campus
On Thursday, John Calipari and the Kentucky basketball program confirmed the arrival of Croatian big man Zvonimir Ivisic to the UK campus by posting pictures of the seven-footer on Twitter.
After a long and drawn-out saga to recruit Ivisic and get him eligible, Calipari appears to have cleared all remaining hurdles for getting the newest Wildcat on campus. Further down, you can see the man fans have come to know as “Big Z” towering over John Calipari. We still don’t know much about the European import, but it’s clear that he is on the Kentucky campus.
Take a look at the physical evidence right here from Coach Calipari and from the Kentucky hoops Twitter account.
Pictures of Ivisic on UK campus
At long last, Kentucky’s Croatian prince has arrived at his new home in Lexington. By the looks of it, he’s already made a stop by the Coal Lodge (where the basketball players stay) and Coach Cal’s office.
After the pics surfaced, the UK Men’s Basketball account posted some more Big Z content, a video of him moving into the dorms and sending a message to Kentucky fans that he’s excited to get to meet them on Friday night at Big Blue Madness.
Ivisic provides necessary depth down low for Kentucky
Without Ivisic on the roster, Kentucky was looking at what they had in Canada: virtually no interior presence and a power forward playing out of position at the five. That’s because the Wildcats have no healthy options down low at the moment, which is certainly causing a few sleepless nights for John Calipari.
Coach Cal was asked exactly that by Seth Greenberg during the Kentucky basketball pro day on Wednesday: what is the one issue with this current team that “keeps him up at night?” With injuries plaguing his front-court, the answer was pretty easy:
“That…we’re not going to have that big,” said Calipari.
That’s the current state of affairs for the Wildcats. Despite now having 21+ feet worth of seven-footers on the roster, UK had exactly zero of those guys available for its pro day. Two of those towering forwards — Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso — are dealing with foot injuries and reports out of pro day suggested it’ll be another 5-6 weeks until those guys are back on the floor. And foot injuries to seven-footers are absolute killers and normally take much longer to recover from than initially expected.
That’s why Big Z was such an important recruit. Nobody really has much of an idea if he’ll be great, good or terrible as a college player, but it doesn’t really matter a whole lot when the ‘Cats simply needed a biig body throw in there while Onyenso and Bradshaw continue to heal up.