Jamal Murray couldn't possibly have made a better college choice. Kentucky isn't for everyone (Thanks, Coach.) but if he'd gone to Oregon, or nearly anywhere else, he'd have spent the entire year having a good time, playing zero defense, and blasting threes. He'd have wound up averaging 20-24ppg, been drafted in the lottery, and then when he got to the league, he'd have been the kind of player that eventually gets his coach fired because he's too good to bench but doesn't win you games.
At Kentucky, if you're not winning, putting up big numbers doesn't impress anybody. He needed to be somewhere like that. I couldn't stand Murray's "game" for the first 2/3rds of this season. He's evolved more than just about any player in the Cal era, learning how to defend, how to rebound, how to set screens and get his in the flow of the offense. The most impressive thing on the stat sheet last night across the board wasn't Murray's 28 points or even Derek Willis' explosion. It was the fact that Murray got his on 12 shots. That's not who he was even a month ago. So impressive.
