John Calipari wants Alex Poythress to play with greater focus for longer stretches of games.

“Play the whole game the way you’re playing in spurts,” Calipari said. “Just do it.”

Poythress has looked nearly unstoppable at times.

“I see where he’s coming from,” Poythress said. “Sometimes I do have mental lapses. I’ve just got to decrease those mental lapses and I should be fine. (During such lapses) I’m just thinking more instead of reacting.”

John Calipari took issue with an NCAA regulation that limits players to one “training meal” per day while school is in session.
"Yeah, it's stupid," Calipari said.

Calipari noted that athletes burn up a higher-than-average amount of calories, and he wants their nutritional needs to be met.

"If you want to eat six times a day, that's fine," he said. "Every individual is different. I just don't understand it, but then again, there's a lot of stuff I don't understand."

Calipari believes the rule is in place because the NCAA is worried about competitive balance and whether every school could offer the same amount of meals to their athletes.

"Now, what I imagine they're afraid of is some team go over-the-top and feed their kids too much," he said sarcastically, "and have a fat team."

Kentucky gains possession an impressive 59 percent of the time when Nerlens Noel blocks a shot.

Noel ranks fifth in the country in blocks per game (3.9) and 17th in block percentage (12.6).

Julius Randle offered an answer that could hint at his eventual college destination when he was told he could pick any player to join him at the Division I level.

“I guess…you know a point guard is pretty important, so I like Andrew, Andrew Harrison,” Randle said.

Andrew Harrison and his twin brother, Aaron, both top five players in the class of 2013, committed to Kentucky in October.

The 6-foot-9 Randle has narrowed his list to six: Kentucky, North Carolina State, Florida, Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Nerlens Noel is the early favorite to grab the No. 1 spot overall in the 2013 NBA draft.

“There just isn’t a player that’s out there that has his upside,” said Chad Ford, ESPN’s NBA draft analyst. “Nerlens isn’t like Anthony Davis last year where every person agreed … but to me he’s got the best shot of being the No. 1 pick. The majority of NBA guys that I speak to have him there.”

Noel is averaging 10.7 points, 9.0 rebounds, 3.9 blocks, 2.8 steals and 2.1 assists -- numbers reminiscent of Davis' effort over the first quarter of last season in Kentucky.

But despite his top prospect status, Noel will be one of the more debated 2013 picks because he has elite athleticism and a high motor for the game but lacks offensive versatility.

“The way that some made it sound coming in was that he was going to struggle, and I don’t really think he’s struggled," Ford said. "He clearly doesn’t have a polished offensive game, but he’s found ways to score the basketball.

“When you talk to the sabermetric (advanced stat) guys in the NBA, they will say that Noel, along with Cody Zeller, are the guys,” Ford added. “When you pick up blocks and steals at that rate together, that is the biggest statistical indicator of elite athleticism. And that’s probably what carries Noel to the No. 1 pick.”

Nerlens Noel is on track to break Rajon Rondo’s record for most steals in a single-season at Kentucky.

Rondo set the Wildcats record with 87 in 2005.

Noel is averaging 2.7 steals per game and could eclipse Rondo’s mark by the end of this season, provided the 6-foot-10 center keeps up his current pace.

Noel also averages 3.6 blocks and 9 rebounds in just under 31 minutes per game.

Nerlens Noel revealed Saturday that he has been dealing with knee tendinitis this season.

"I don't get it like that (regularly),” Noel said. “Just through soreness, because it was a long week of conditioning and basketball. I get it just through soreness of playing a lot."

Noel said the pain usually arises in his left knee, but sometimes both knees.

The Kentucky center successfully played through the tendinitis on Saturday, scoring 7 points, grabbing 9 rebounds and blocking 7 shots in a 74-46 victory over Portland.

"It was tough early on," Noel said of the Portland game. "But it started to loosen up and I was able to just play hard on it with less pain."

Karl Towns has reclassified to the class of 2014 while committing to Kentucky.

Towns attends St. Joseph High School in New Jersey, the same school Andrew Bynum attended.

Towns was the top-ranked player in the class of 2015.

Andrew Wiggins will visit Florida State from Dec. 4-5, Huntington Prep coach Rob Fulford confirmed.

“He’s going to Florida State, I think Tuesday morning,” Fulford said after Wiggins scored 29 points, grabbed 17 rebounds, blocked five shots and recorded five assists in a 76-59 win over Memphis East on Friday. “He’s going down for the Florida game [Wednesday].”

Both of Wiggins' parents -- former NBA player Mitchell Wiggins and former Canadian Olympic track star Marita Payne-Wiggins -- attended Florida State.

“I like to see everything that happened there with my parents,” Wiggins said of FSU. “It would be a joy to go there, I mean great weather. Great people, great education. Great coaching staff. they make players better. They don’t always get the best players in the nation, or top five or top ten, but they develop four-year players to get ready for the NBA.”

Fulford said Wiggins would also like to visit Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina.

“He’s said he wants to go to Florida State, Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina,” he said. “Those are the ones he said he wants to visit. Timeframe, we don’t know. I mean obviously we just don’t have a ton of weekends available for visits. I know he’s going to take this one because his parents can come, but yeah, he said he wants to take at least those four.”