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When former UK stars formed La Familia to play in The Basketball Tournament earlier this summer, UK guard Lamont Butler admitted he had patterned his game a bit after Eric Bledsoe, a player on John Calipari’s first Kentucky team.

“I know he’s a very explosive guard and it was pretty awesome to meet him. It was amazing to be chopping up with the stuff he gave me to improve on,” Butler said about Bledsoe. “He played with Chris Paul, and that’s one of my guys right there, too. So it was great to hear advice from him (Bledsoe). He told me about Chris Paul’s leadership.

“His own advice to me was really just to have fun with the whole thing this year. He said just to take the pressure off and have fun with it in the one year I do have left in college. So I want to remember that.”

Butler likes the team coach Mark Pope has assembled for a lot of reasons.

“We can shoot the lights out the ball so I think it’s gonna be really tough to beat us. We have a veteran group. We’re learning quickly and gelling quickly. So just trying to continue to get that team chemistry now,” Butler said. “It’s going at a fast pace right now learning all the new stuff that coach Pope is trying to instill.

“My role is to go out there and be a leader. I went to the championship game. Just go out there and show them how to play. I feel like that’s my main thing. I try to be aggressive and spice stuff up on defense.”

He really likes practicing against Kerr Kriisa.

“Kerr shoots the lights out. My job is to make him better every day and his job is to make me better. The deeper we are as a team, the better we are going to be,” Butler said.