Can defensive star Jarvis Vernado handle DeMarcus Cousins?
February 16th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Kentucky forward DeMarcus Cousins celebrates in the second half against Georgia at Rupp Arena in Lexington. One scout suggests Cousins would be the second pick of UK players for an NBA draft. (Clay Jackson photo)
By KENNY WALKER
DeMarcus Cousins had his streak of double-doubles stopped against Tennessee Saturday for two reasons — he missed seven of eight free throws and Tennessee’s Wayne Chism muscled him around inside.
Now Cousins faces Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado, last year’s SEC Defensive Player of the Year, tonight in Starkville, Miss.
The two players have different styles. The reason Varnado has been such an effective shot blocker is that he does a great job of staying away from his man and he has great timing to go straight up and block shots. It will be interesting to see how he plays Cousins because you need to lean on him like Chism did to not let him get where he wants to be. It will be interesting to see if Varnado can keep that space on defense and go straight up and block the shot or will the contact Cousins will cause get him in foul trouble. I think he will have to play differently against DeMarcus Cousins than he has played against any other big guy he has gone against.
He will be the best big defender DeMarcus has faced. DeMarcus, though, is another Shaquille O’Neal except he is a much better scorer in college than Shaq was. Shaq basically just overpowered you with his strength and dunked the ball probably 70 percent of the time. DeMarcus can dunk, but he can spin either way along the baseline, finishes at the rim with either hand, has a nice hook shot, a nice turnaround jump shot and he has some nice up and under moves. He has got the whole package to pull out and I think it will be a big challenge for Varnado because I don’t think he has seen a big man that has a game like that.
And don’t forget that he not only has to battle Cousins, but he has to battle Patrick Patterson and push on Daniel Orton a little bit, too. I just think really good big guys will be better than one.
I don’t think Varnado can handle Cousins, but he has surprised me the last two years with what he has done. These will be the toughest big guys he has gone against. Patrick Patterson was getting more active inside against Tennessee and even though he didn’t convert some shots, he is getting his confidence up and if Cousins goes out you have another aggressive player in there and combine that with Orton and there’s no way for Varnado to hold up against that.
Posted in UK Basketball
Thanks Kenny, I totally agree he can;t handle Cus alone without a lot of help from the refs.
Good article Kenny. I agree too. But I thought it looked like something was going on with Cuz during the UT game and it wasn’t all Chism. But, according to Larry’s article this morning, he is happy again and over whatever ailed him. Like I posted on that story and you stated above:
1 OUTSTANDING BIG MAN < 3 OUTSTANDING BIG MEN.
This WILL be an interesting game.
GO BIG BLUE!!!!
I like your formula Jim. Hopefully, our big men make Jarvis work very hard on both ends of the floor and run when possible. Getting him tired should help to slow him down and make him a little late with his help defense. He’s very good at forcing a pass from his man and then blocking the shot when he turns to help.
Our inside guys need to work together throughout the game and not try to do too much individually.
Should be a great challenge.
Vanardo has been playing against tough competition longer than Cuz has and he’s seen more from good big men. That will be to his advantage tonight. Sometimes when Cousins makes a great move under the basket and gets somewhat free he tends to go up too softy and shoot rather than slam it down. Vanardo will kill him if he does that tonight. The reason we’ll beat Mr V inside is by having more fouls to give and more than one at a time to throw at him. He is a fantastic defensive player and will earn a living playing balll one day.
I agree Kenny,
Cousins will be tested differently than anything he has seen in the paint to date. MSU will not play Man so it will be entersting to see if they colapse and give Vernado help down below.
Vernado is pretty thin and I don’t know if he has the muscle to push Cousins or Orton off the block and get them out of their desired working area all night long.
It could come down to how the Refs let them play and of course what kind of whistle will be blown. If they let them play, our bigs should prevail. If not, we have 3 post up guys that can probably out last the whistles.
This matchup tonight will be one nba guys are really watching two for both players. big game for both of them
Back in the mid 70’s, Alabama had a great center named Leon Douglas who was all SEC and All American. Joe Hall had three big men lean on Douglas all game log. Rick Robey. Mike Philips, and Bob Guyette kept switching out on him. With about 7 minutes to go in the game, Douglas couldn’t lift his arms above his shoulders. UK pulled away for the victory.
Maybe Varnado will wear down in the same way.
I don’t know how the match up will turn out, but Cousins going against Orton in practice everyday at least gives him a lot of experience against a very good shot blocker.
Great point about Orton
and great memory about Douglas and 1978
I think there was a lot more to the reasons Cousins didn’t get his double double. For one thing he has been noticeably limping for the past several games and when he fell he clearly aggravated the injury he already had. That appeared to have a lot to do with his reduced playing time and his ability to use his drop step move. Beyond that UT used two and sometimes three men to stop Cuz. Chism played him close and pushed him a lot and sometimes violently in an obvious attempt to get Cousins to lose his temper. The refs did a bad job of controlling that cheap shot style of play. There was always someone playing behind Chism also. The power forward who happened to be playing at the time set himself up right in the postion Cousins gets to when he goes around the man defending him. At times they had someone fronting Cousins also. Teams had been concentrating their defense on Wall causing inside players to be open and Cousins took full advantage of that situation. UT played a different strategy and loaded up to stop Cousins. That’s why we saw Wall get a lot of points. It’s all about how the defense plays your team. When they concentrate on someone there’s a teammate that will be open. Yes Cousins missed several free throws. I thought that had a lot to do with his injury. I don’t expect Miss. St. to double Cousins. They will assume Varnado can stop him. They will be wrong about that.