Jacob Toppin had 13 of UK's final 17 points in the final 10 minutes of the first half at LSU. (UK Athletics Photo)
So obviously that had something to do with UK shooting a season-low 36 percent from the field.
However, there are still points to ponder:
— In the final 9 minutes, 18 seconds of the first half, Kentucky scored 17 points but 13 of them came from Jacob Toppin. The rest of the team had two combined field goals in the last 9:18 and Toppin had to score UK’s final 10 points in the half.
— In the second half, Kentucky came out on fire and turned a 35-30 halftime deficit into a 50-41 lead. However, from 13:06 to 1:52 Kentucky scored THREE POINTS. I don’t care who is out of the game, a top 20 team should have players good enough to score more than three points in 11 minutes.
That means if you take out what Toppin did in the first half, Kentucky had a combined stretch of about 21 minutes where it had seven points total from anyone not named Jacob Toppin.
Kellan Grady had three 3-pointers early in the second half before LSU put a stop to UK’s offense.
What happened?
“You got to give a little credit to LSU and some blame to us,” Grady said after finishing with 13 points on 4-for-13 shooting. “They adjusted to how they were guarding some of the actions we were doing to get shots early on in the second half.
“They started making catches a lot more difficult with their switches. The clean looks I was getting early on (in the half), they took away.”
Grady had said earlier that the Cats learned from their loss at Notre Dame, UK’s only road game before playing at LSU. Now he knows the team has more to learn.
“We have got to learn how to win in environments like this,” Grady said. “It’s hard to hear calls but we have got to execute when it matters and we didn’t down the stretch.”
Grady said UK has to take both positives and negatives from the loss and move on.
“We showed a lot of resolve and toughness,” Grady said. “But it is very evident on the road all the little things become more important.”
4 Responses
LSU may have issues but their issues are not at the defensive end. They have the #1 defensive efficiency in the SEC AND in the nation.
LSU had been the team struggling to find consistent scoring, and last night they only managed 65 total points, which was enough to beat this UK team without Wheeler for the entire game, Oscar for most of the first half, and without Washington for a significant part of the second half.
If the UK brain trust really believes their own public proclamation about LSU having an uncertain defense, then that is on the coaching staff.
This UK team has been playing much better basketball over the last 5 games than it had played for the first 9 games, and even last night’s overall performance against a very capable LSU team on the road was much better than its last road game at Notre Dame.
I hope Wheeler is not out for long and UK solves the issue whereby an opponent takes Oscar out with early fouls.
Despite the recent improvements, I still do not see this team as an Elite 8 type team, but I do think it has improved to be in the Sweet 16.
Even know we came up short, I like the will and fight we had tell the end. Go Cats!!
We were not prepared for the physical nature of this game. We missed 10 free throws which shows our mental focus had lapses. Finally, when the game could have been won in the last 30 seconds, we feel apart completely…everyone except Davion Mintz was in panic mode. Oscar should have called a timeout with his steal to get everyone settled down. Coach’s archaic dribble drive offenses needs some work too. How many more wakeup games will we have to endure before this team gets it together?
Dontaie only gets walk on minutes but Cal throws him in this game. His coaching is getting more bizarre all the time.