Tennessee's physical play took a big toll on Kentucky. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Slow down that national championship talk just a bit. Kentucky got humbled for a lot of reasons Tuesday night when it lost 76-63 at Tennessee. That’s the same team Kentucky beat 107-78 about a month ago in Rupp Arena.
But not this time. It was Tennessee, not Kentucky, forcing turnovers. It was Tennessee, not Kentucky, making shots. It was Tennessee, not Kentucky, with the better overall execution.
Kentucky had five field goals in the first three minutes and then had a stretch of over 10 minutes without a field goal. Oscar Tshiebwe was 5-for-15 from the field — and all were shots in the paint. Kellan Grady was 2-for-9, Keion Brooks 1-for-6, and Davion Mintz 4-for-12.
If that wasn’t enough, freshman guard TyTy Washington did start after injuring his ankle Saturday but clearly was not himself. He was only 1-for-2 from the field and seemed a half-step slow on defense before he injured his ankle again early in the second half. He played only 12 minutes in the game after scoring 28 in the earlier win over Tennessee.
So what happened? Let Kentucky coach John Calipari explain.
“What it appeared to me is they needed it more, wanted it more. Took us out of stuff physically and physically banged us around,” Calipari said.
Calipari said his players had to “own their performance” and not look for excuses from those who might imply Tennessee got away from fouls, UK just had a bad shooting night or anything else.
“The game was physical. It was a bump and grind type game. You have to own it. You can’t let anybody alibi it,” Calipari said. “We got manhandled. It was a revenge game. They are playing better. They are moving the ball. They shoot the ball really well here.”
“I want to give Tennessee credit for how we played but it was not one of our best efforts. They just had more fight than us.”
Jacob Toppin was UK’s best player. He was 5-for-9 from the field and had three rebounds. He obviously understood Calipari’s postgame message about no excuses.
“We came into this game and we wanted to dominate but clearly we did not do that,” Toppin said. “We couldn’t make shots. We didn’t execute. Defensively we were not disruptive at all.”
Kentucky had won six straight games since a loss at Auburn and climbing to No. 4 in the national rankings. Toppin said the loss was “100 percent” a wake-up call the team may have needed.
“We said that in the locker room as soon as we came in after the game like we needed this,” Toppin said. “It’s a wake-up call. Now we’re going to dial back and we’re going to lock in and we’re going to go back to dominating the game how we were.
“This was definitely what we needed. We are going to learn from it and we are going to get better.”
7 Responses
I feel the pain as a fan as much as the next fan. However, it is no more appropriate to evaluate a team based on its poorest performances than to do so based on its best performances. Yes, last night was one of those poorest performances of the season, but it was neither the absolute poorest nor the first such performance.
Last month, when UK manhandled these same Vols in Rupp, it was one of UK’s best performances of the year, but it was not the best nor the first such performance either. At that time, I said as much, but then explained that since game 9 (poorest performance of this season), this team had been playing as well as almost anyone in the country.
Guess what? That is still the case this morning. Yes, it was tough to watch, and none of us like watching our team humbled like it was last night. But it was what it was.
Now for some facts: Since game 9 (Notre Dame), this team has had 6 games out of 17 games with game ANE values of 0.4 ppp or higher, and the first UT game was one of those powerful games. Since game 9, this team has 4 games with game ANE values below 0.2 ppp and last night’s game at UT was one of those poor performance games.
Other than a disappointing showing in Knoxville, nothing has really changed with this team’s post season prospects. I believe this team is still a #2 seed, and can still play its way into a #1 seed.
The task this morning is for this team and its coaches to extract the lessons from this game and focus on these last 5 games and the SEC Tournament where UK will have another shot at UT and Auburn.
I also believe this team is still in position to compete for a trip to the Final Four and a championship.
Over the years, games like we witnessed last night have happened to some mighty good UK basketball teams.
Well, I thought the whistles were silent against UT in the personal foul department for much of the night, but that said, it also looked like UK was sleep walking, and unprepared for whatever reason. Oscar was getting mugged all night long, no calls. UT did most of the bumping and grinding, and the Cats got a whipping for their effort, or lack thereof. It is evident to me that this UK team is hurting when Washington is not on the floor, and healthy. Poor shooting from UK is the story also. UK needed better scoring from their shooters.
This was Tennessee BOYS!!!, Kentucky had to know this was going to be all out war in Knoxville. UK was not up for the challenge after destroying UT in the first meeting between the two in Lexington, it happens. UK must move on and learn from this now. I don’t think this game defines the trajectory for this UK team one iota. They can’t win a national championship playing like they did last night, but this team is very capable when they bring their A game. They need a healthy, and hungry Ty Ty, big time, to get it done though.
Kentucky just was not aggressive enough
This game shows that nobody on our team is ready for the NBA. Grady and Mintz are out of eligibility, but they are not ready to play at the next level. A year or two in Europe could give them a NBA chance. Ty needs at least one more year to learn how to play through physicality. Oscar needs another year to learn how pass out of double teams and how to get his shot off against taller players. Other teams are attacking Oscar AFTER he gets the rebound and he has had problems with turnovers at times…another year at KY could resolve these issues. Sahvir needs to accept the fact that he will NEVER play in the NBA. His role on our team is that of a facilitator and defender and he looked bad at both last night. When Sahvir looks for his shot first, it throws the offense out of sync. Keion disappeared again and Sahvir’s play effects that as much as anything. It was good to see Jacob back last night. He looked good and needs to be starting instead of Keion. Mintz was off and Grady was too, but Sahvir effects this too. This team will only go as far as Sahvir takes it…not as a scorer, but as a facilitator and defender.
Hard to judge TyTy in this game because he was not close to 100 percent. Remember he had 28 the first time against vols
I’m like professor the long this could be a good loss. it was pretty obvious that the vols wanted more than we did. Cats will be fine.
Only way to look at it without going crazy. Learn and move on hopefully
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