By LARRY VAUGHT

Paul Biancardi says one thing was obvious about Jacksonville’s Stacey Poole verbal commitment to Kentucky on ESPNU Thursday.

“He wants to play for Kentucky and for coach (John) Calipari. He has a strong desire to do that and a great belief in his own ability to contribute at Kentucky,” said Biancardi, ESPNU’s national director of recruiting.

Biancardi thinks Kentucky is getting a player that will enjoy a productive career. He’s seen him play in person numerous times since April and thinks the 6-5 Poole will do well under Calipari.

“He is extremely athletic. His dad was a great athlete at Florida, so he has great genes,” Biancardi said. “He is one of the best players in his class at utilizing the dribble-drive.

“He has a quick first step that gets him by defenders. He can finish in the lane with great body control. He can hit a floater in the lane or make a pull-up shot. He can really play multiple positions and he can defend the one, two or three.”

Biancardi says more than anything, Poole is a scorer made for Calipari’s dribble-drive offense.

“He can drive to the rim, finish in transition and he’s really good at getting points off the offensive glass. He’ll get a lot of second chance points because he has a tremendous knack for knowing where the ball is,” Biancardi said. “He is a tremendous competitor. He plays with a real tenacity on the court.

“If you play for John Calipari, you have got to play defense. That’s a rule, not an exception. Calipari’s dribble-drive offense is good, but he is a real stickler for defense.”

Biancardi, a Boston native, should know. He’s a veteran collegiate coach and was named the Horizon League Coach of the Year in 2004 while at Wright State. He’s a former assistant coach at Ohio State and he also was an assistant at Boston College for seven seasons and got a first-hand look at Calipari when he was the head coach at Massachusetts.

“When I was at Boston College we faced his UMass teams and they were really hard to score on. At Memphis, he had top defensive teams,” Biancardi said. “I have studies his team over the years and they are annually one of the toughest teams in the country to score on.”

Based on Calipari’s recruiting so far at Kentucky, it might be hard to keep the Cats from scoring big points, too.

“He’s not going to recruit a John Wall or DeMarcus Cousins every time. He’ll have some players with great NBA potential and some four-year players,” Biancardi said. “It’s a perfect blend for success. He believes you need a great player to lift your team and be the star. But he knows you also need four-year players.

“It’s too early to say where Stacey Poole will fit in, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he will be a heavy contributor at Kentucky and be a very, very good player.”

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