Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse says his team has the same problems as UK. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Having the Vanderbilt coach compare his team to Kentucky is not exactly high praise for the Wildcats but that’s what happened Saturday night after the Commodores lost 92-71 to Arkansas to drop to 4-7 overall and 0-5 in SEC play. After the loss, Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse did not mince words about his team.
“We’ve got to find some guys that want to play basketball,” Stackhouse said. “Right now, we’ve got some guys that don’t want to play no damn basketball. We’ve got to figure that out sooner rather than later. I’d rather go with just young guys … give them a chance, when we’ve got guys who have been here four or five years and play 20 minutes and get one offensive rebound and one defensive rebound.”
Well, that’s not UK-like because Kentucky does not have players that have been around four or five years. But then Stackhouse heated up and got to the Kentucky comparison.
“We’re just doing dumb stuff over and over and over again,” Stackhouse added. “And I take responsibility for it, but I don’t know — I haven’t had any teams that I’ve had before that I continue to tell the same things as much as I’ve told this team, for them to still come out and do the same sh!!.
“I was listening to (Kentucky coach John) Calipari the other day, listening to the postgame on him. And I think we might have the same team, just with different names. It’s the same thing. Stuff that we work on in practice and we do well, then we don’t come out and we don’t have the carry over that we need to give ourselves the chance to win games.”
Same team at Kentucky? Ouch. Maybe Stackhouse has that swagger because his team almost won at Rupp Arena losing only 77-74. Maybe he thought indicating Kentucky was doing the “same thing” helped him but not sure that’s the case with UK being 5-9.
And I sure don’t think it helps anyone at UK feel better being compared to Vanderbilt, a team that has not won a SEC game this season.
