Jacob Toppin had 10 points in Saturday's loss. (SEC Photo)
Kentucky fans have hit the panic button and have good reason for that reaction. Kentucky’s 66-59 loss at Auburn Saturday dropped UK to 4-8 overall. Auburn was ranked 75th by stats guru Ken Pomeroy in his rankings. Of course, UK had already lost to No. 87 Notre Dame.
Don’t forget that after playing No. 89 Georgia, UK has to play LSU, Alabama, Texas, Missouri and Tennessee — five games where it likely will be the underdog in each game.
How does the team keep from getting too desperate?
“We know what kind of team we are and have shown in a couple of games what kind of team we can be,” sophomore forward Jacob Toppin said. “When we play our type of basketball we win games.”
Problem is UK has really only played the “type of basketball” Kentucky fans expect in one game — the win at Florida.
The biggest issue is a horrible offense. As ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes correctly noted during Saturday’s loss, the Cats came into the game in the bottom 15 percent nationally in half-court offensive efficiency and certainly did nothing to improve that ranking.
Toppin said the offense would be fine when all players “bought in” to what the Cats were trying to do. My question to him then was why in the world in mid-January would any player not be bought in on a team with a losing record.
“I think everyone is dialed in. We just have to become more consistent,” Toppin said. “Sometimes when we are playing some people tend to go off and play me basketball and that’s what we don’t need. It just comes with experience.”
Toppin said as UK plays more games, players will figure out the value of team basketball. Again, how could a team 4-8 not understand that by now and if it doesn’t why think that team is ever going to figure that out.
Making shots would help more than anything but this team has not scored over 65 points in any loss.
What’s wrong with the offense?
“Some players don’t take shots when they are open. Maybe it is mental because one shot misses and you do not shoot the next one. Once we are not worrying about the last shot and start hitting shots and shooting shots when open …” Toppin said. “That is just mental. If we are open we need to shoot baskets and make baskets. We are not making baskets now and once we do we will start winning.”
So is missing shots contagious?
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t really think it is contagious unless everyone is missing,” Toppin said. “We have all got to step up and make shots and that’s when we will start winning.”
Translation: Based on the way UK has shot for 12 games, wins might be few and far between the next two months unless there is some type of magical potion to turn this team into shooters.
