On the other hand, UK's Murray gets creative

LEXINGTON, Ky. – When you lose 85 percent of the scoring off your Final Four team, as Kentucky coach John Calipari did after last season, it’s important to find somebody who can put the ball in the basket. Enter freshman Jamal Murray.

“A playmaking, scoring kind of guard,” Calipari said. “Like, you put the ball in his hands and something good is going to happen.”

The plural, hands, was not accidental.

“Yeah,” Murray says, almost shrugging, “I’m ambidextrous.”

The 6-foot-4 Canadian is known for his versatility – playing point guard or off the ball with equal aplomb, defending multiple positions – but it goes much deeper than that. When it comes to his primary purpose for the Wildcats, who lost the Harrison twins and Devin Booker to the NBA, Murray has myriad methods for getting buckets.

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“We need him to score baskets and create havoc,” Calipari said. “He has ways of getting balls in the basket left and right hand. As a matter of fact, he shoots 3-pointers as well lefty as he does righty. And he likes to show me.”

Wait, what?

Another shrug from the former five-star recruit and projected NBA lottery pick. Can’t everyone do that? No, no they cannot.

“My dad’s been teaching me ever since I was a little kid. Every time we went to the gym, I practiced both right and left hand an equal amount of time,” said Murray, who in games shoots jump shots with his right hand. Usually. “I hurt my shoulder one game (in high school) and I had to play with my left.”

How’d that go?

“I had 25,” he said, grinning. “Nothing changed.”

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In hockey and baseball, Murray shoots and swings left-handed. At Kentucky, he stays after practice to put up extra lefty jumpers “just to make sure it’s still kind of strong.” If he misses a couple of right-handed shots, Calipari sometimes jokes that he should consider permanently switching hands.

That is not, however, a green light to shoot southpaw from distance in games.

“No,” Murray said, “not with Coach Cal breathing down my neck.”

But drives and dishes and close-range opportunities are fair game. He can use whatever hand it takes to put points on the board. The only guarantee about how Murray will get it in the basket is that it’ll look smooth, effortless.

The teenager who led Canada’s senior national team to the finals of the Pan-Am Games this summer glides on size-17 feet and reaches over, under and around defenders with a 6-foot-7 wingspan. He posted a 39 ½-inch vertical leap at UK’s on-campus combine for NBA scouts last week.

“He’s sneaky athletic,” Calipari said. “In other words: ‘He just went up and dunked that behind his head? What?’ The speed is like, ‘Where’d that come from?’ His game is a little different that way.

“I don’t even know what his upside is. Like, when I looked at (No. 1 pick Karl-Anthony Towns), I knew where I was trying to take him. You look at: OK, Devin, this is what we’ve got to do with your game. But this kid just started showing me stuff like, ‘What in the world? Where is this going?’ ”

Back to a third straight Final Four, the Cats hope. Murray’s presence is a big reason that, despite seven players leaving for the NBA, Kentucky is preseason No. 1 again.

And to think, if five-star guard Malik Newman hadn’t spurned Calipari to stay home at Mississippi State, Murray might never have been in Lexington.

“It’s funny how things work out,” Calipari said. “Fate intervenes a lot. You lose on some guys, and when you get who you get, you say, ‘Thank goodness.’ ”

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him at ktucker@courier-journal.com.