Well, that sucked. No other way to put it, certainly no way to spin it. Kentucky had put up historic offensive numbers before it ran into the buzzsaw that is Lamont Paris’ defense at South Carolina. The best scoring team in basketball put up just 62 points in Columbia, shooting 40.3% from the field and 30.8% from three with just seven total assists. And things remained problematic on the other end, allowing 79 points to become the first team in school history to allow at least 77 in each of the Cats’ first six SEC games of a season.
Undisciplined on defense, selfish on offense, overwhelmed physically on both ends. Just a recipe for disaster, paving the way for Kentucky’s second straight true road loss.
John Calipari says he needs 24 hours to get over losses, and his call-in show Wednesday evening put him right around that mark. What did he have to say about how things unfolded in Columbia and what’s next for the Cats? Let’s break it down tonight on 4-Point Play.
Let’s get physical
Calipari got calls after the game from coaching friends asking what most of us thought: What happened to this team? Where did the offense go? Why did their identity change on a dime?
Well, that’s what happens when young teams hit adversity. They revert and all of their bad habits shine through. They prove the habits they had been building aren’t dominant habits quite yet. South Carolina was just the first team to really expose that.
“What this young group doesn’t understand is you can lose the game in a minute and a half. By making three or four plays in a row, it goes to 11,” Calipari said. “Playing South Carolina was kinda like when I was coaching against (John) Chaney (at Temple). They were so deliberate that if you got down 11 or 12, it was a problem. But if you got up 10, 12 and 15, it was a problem for them because of how they play. They’d have to play out of their comfort zone, play faster. But they played good. I mean, they made shots.”
The biggest issue: physicality. Kentucky just didn’t respond to getting punched in the mouth. That’s priority No. 1 in practice the rest of the week ahead of the team’s trip to Arkansas.
“They manhandled us physically. It was like men against boys. … So what do you think tomorrow and Friday I will do in practice?” he said, acknowledging things will be physical. “We’ve got stuff we’ve got to work on, it’s another lesson.”
What could that look like? He said back in his UMass days, screens turned into Oklahoma drills. If you didn’t knock your guy off the ground setting one, practice was stopped and the whole team ran. If you were getting screened and “you didn’t run that son of a gun over?” You guessed it, “we’re running.”
Adou Thiero could play at Arkansas
Practice is going to be tough on Thursday and Friday, Calipari promising a learning lesson with the Cats on handling physical play. It could get tougher and more physical with one potential addition to the mix.
Last playing Dec. 21 at Louisville, Adou Thiero has missed seven straight games for Kentucky. Will it be eight? Not if he suits up in practice the rest of the week. He’ll make his anticipated return if that’s the case.
“If Adou (Thiero) practices for two days then he’ll play this weekend. I don’t think we’ve had our full roster one day this year,” Calipari said. “… Adou, we’ll have him if he practices two days.”
It comes after Coach Cal questioned his absence at South Carolina after “dunking balls and stuff” in practice last week. He warned that if things drag out any longer, he may not have a guaranteed spot in the rotation as things tighten up. “You’d better get back here and fight,” he added.
Message received.
Could Kentucky go zone?
Calipari told Zvonimir Ivisic to not go out there and recreate the movie that was Saturday vs. Georgia in his debut. “Just play,” he told him. And he showed some good, some bad — to be expected for a guy playing his first week of college basketball.
“They were physical with him, they put the 275-pound guy on him. He’s a little behind defensively, positioning and where he needs to be, all those things. … I’ll probably sit down with Z and just say, ‘Look, I’m gonna give you a few shots to play, but I need you to catch up on this defensive stuff.’ Again, we’re a couple stops, a couple of plays — guy turned and dunked on him, just being able to hold your ground. But he was good.”
A potential answer to keeping Ivisic on the floor — and maybe some of the team’s defensive issues in general? You may want to sit down for this.
Zone.
“Been working on some zone, we may throw some zone in and out, especially with Z. And you guys look at me and say, ‘He’ll never play zone.’ Well, if Z can’t guard the way he needs to and we want to play him, you put him in the middle of a zone. Just say, ‘You won’t believe this, kid. Just be real big. Be 7-2.’ And so I just like to hold guys accountable.”
Kentucky fell to No. 98 in KenPom defensive efficiency following the loss. Is zone the answer?
The Razorbacks will force on-on-ones
Zone could be in the works for certain stretches, but the Cats better be ready to defend. That’s the way Arkansas plays, forcing isolation opportunities in an attempt to beat you one-on-one.
“Let me tell you, the game is going to be 50% one-on-one. So if you can’t guard — boom, boom, boom — he’s trying to go by you and score. Shoot a three, stepback, layups — that’s how they play. And in that building, they make shots. In that building, they’re good,” Calipari said of Eric Musselman and the Razorbacks. “… They get a lot of room to play, Muss runs good stuff for them, creates isolations. They’re good. They’re well-coached, just like the team we played last night. We have to come out with unbelievable energy on the road and put everybody on their heels.”
Kentucky hasn’t been as connected as Coach Cal would like his team to be. He hopes the setback sparks change — a reality check for the young Cats.
“A crisis brings about change, brings you back together,” he said. “Gets you to rely on each other and count on each other, know things aren’t going to work this way.”
