Olivier Sarr looked "great" in a scrimmage against Transylvania and handled physical, rough play thrown at him by the Pioneers. (SEC Photo)
His team had already lost games on consecutive nights at Morehead and at Eastern Kentucky just two nights later along with a game at Murray State. But Transylvania coach Brian Lane continued COVID-19 testing protocols hoping his Division III team might pick up another game with a Division I opponent because less than 30 Division III teams are playing before January 1 at the earliest.
Kentucky had reached out to Transy to see if it might be available for a scrimmage if it could not reschedule a game with Hartford.
“I got a call saying they were not going to be able to play us, which didn’t completely hurt my feelings,” Lane said. “But later that same evening Cal (John Calipari) called and said the other game had fallen through and he would like to play.”
Transy players and staff were tested two more times before the teams scrimmaged at Rupp Arena Tuesday. Lane wasn’t sure how to even get into Rupp Arena — a place his team had played four times since 2011 — because of ongoing construction so he took a drive to the arena by himself “so my guys would think I knew where I was going” when the team went to the game.
His six seniors had played in an exhibition game previously against Kentucky and were excited despite having not much more than a day to prepare for the game against 1-6 Kentucky.
“It was something good for both teams that will help both of us,” Lane said. “Our guys know what Kentucky is going through. Any college basketball player probably knows how difficult it is to incorporate freshmen into what you are doing. Usually you have exhibition games to get young guys ready before you play on national TV against the people they did.”
Lane said he could sense how UK’s young players were “unsure about what to do” but he has no doubt the Cats will continue to improve.
“The thing I was really impressed with was their defense. Their defense is just tremendous. It was clear he (Calipari) really wanted to focus on their offensive execution,” Lane said.
“Olivier (Sarr) really had a good game. (Jacob) Toppin was tremendous. I had not followed him that much but he had a really good game. Dontaie Allen hit some shots. I think they are in that mode of how to play with each other, especially on the offensive end.
“We tried to do some things to disrupt them and they scored inside. That’s a big thing for the typical Big Blue fan to know. I am sure Olivier wants to play better. But Anthony Davis his freshman year had eight blocks against us but we held him to like four points, the lowest output he had (at Kentucky).
“Sometimes it is hard for big guys to play against smaller players but he handled it like a veteran guy. We were being physical and trying to push him around but he handled it great.”
Lane said stats were not kept but he was “sure” Brandon Boston did make shots.
“I do know this. They shot it a lot better than their percentages have been showing,” Lane said. “We were guarding them, too. They just shot well.”
