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Marquis Teague’s performance a testament to his improvement this year

NCAA Men's Championship Game - Kansas v Kentucky

NEW ORLEANS, LA - APRIL 02: Marquis Teague #25 of the Kentucky Wildcats lays the ball up against Elijah Johnson #15 of the Kansas Jayhawks in the first half in the National Championship Game of the 2012 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on April 2, 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

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NEW ORLEANS - For the fifth consecutive season, John Calipari brought in one of the best high school guards in the country. The previous four? Two went No. 1 over all in the NBA Draft, one went fourth and the other went eighth, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when the expectations for Marquis Teague heading into the season were incredibly lofty.

But it took a while for Teague to get acclimated to the college game. He wasn’t terrible at the start of the year, but he certainly wasn’t great. He struggled with turnovers early in the season. He didn’t find his shooting stroke until conference play.

Once Teague gained that confidence, however, he became one of the biggest reasons that Kentucky went from a really good team to a potentially great team. And it was on display on Monday night.

Teague finished with 14 points and three assists, and while he cooled off later in the game and finished just 5-14 from the floor, it’s far from an indicator for how he well he played. Teague was hot early, scoring nine points in the first 13 minutes.

But he played a bigger role than that.

The reason that Kentucky was able to get up by as much as 18 in the first half wasn’t necessarily due to their ability to get out in transition. That certainly helped, but the majority of their points came off of well-executed half-court offense. A point guard’s role in running half-court offense is critical, and Teague went a long way towards showing that he was capable of running a team.

It is still far from a guarantee that Teague will leave school this spring to head to the NBA. As he said after the game, he has four weeks until the NBA’s deadline for underclassmen to declare for the draft, in which time you better believe that his coaching staff will do everything in their power to determine just where he is projected to get picked. It’s not out of the question that Teague could end up becoming the fifth consecutive point guard coaching by Calipari to leave school after one season and head to the NBA.

That possibility is a testament to just how well he played on Monday and just how far he has come since November.