Despite sloppy finish the bottom line is that UK won again with two starting guards not playing

Kentucky had to rally again and overcome a double-digit first-half deficit to win Wednesday. (UK Athletics Photo)

Okay, Kentucky didn’t close the game like coach John Calipari wanted or the way you would expect a Final Four contender to do. However, don’t let UK allowing most of a 14-point lead with 2 minutes, 11 seconds to slip away before beating LSU 71-66 to wipe out this — Kentucky won again over a likely NCAA Tournament team with starting guards TyTy Washington and Sahvir Wheeler not playing.

The Cats did it against Alabama Saturday and again this game fell behind in the first half because of a 3-point barrage by LSU — not normally a good 3-point shooting team. Kentucky didn’t flinch and dominated the first 18 minutes of the second half thanks to an explosive 13-point performance by seldom-used freshman Bryce Hopkins.

There is just something about this team that seems special. Kentucky had four players in double figures led by Oscar Tshiebwe’s 17 points, 16 rebounds, and three blocked shots. Kentucky won despite missing 10 of 12 3-pointers — and one make was a bank shot by Jacob Toppin for the second straight game — and Kellan Grady managed to get 13 points despite going 0-for-5 from 3-point range.

And get this — UK has only THREE assists and just FIVE fast break points. LSU also got 23 points off Kentucky turnovers while UK had FIVE. Yet this resilient group of Cats still won even if they might have nearly driven coach John Calipari crazy with their turnovers and mistakes in the final two minutes.

“We did some dumb things down the stretch but the reality is we were up 10 or 12 points and it was a good win,” Calipari said.

The UK coach blamed himself for some of the late-game woes for not making an adjustment just to throw the ball in agains the press to Tshiebwe and play through him.

Calipari said he never thinks about losing a game.

“My mind doesn’t flip to that and I’m trying to tell you to play to win. If you don’t win, you don’t win but you play to win. Playing not to lose, that gets you to lose. You play to win, play to stretch it out,” Calipari said. “You may use clock. You may massage the clock and then make a basket. If you don’t, you don’t. But you are playing to win.”

Tshiebwe said UK didn’t panic when it fell behind just like it didn’t when it was behind by double digits against Alabama in the first half.

“We know games are not going to be easy. We just have to go back and play,” Tshiebwe said. “We gotta do a lot of different things to help this team. But this team (LSU), it was good to prepare us for the big game coming up against Arkansas (on Saturday). It’s going to be a big game but I think we gotta handle business.”

Hopkins had not had to play a big role at crunch time this season and admitted the last two minutes were “kind of difficult” without Wheeler and Washington —UK’s two primary ball handlers who Calipari said may miss the Arkansas game.

“We kind of had to think of something on the fly on how to get the ball in and then just get the game over with,” Hopkins said. “We really didn’t always do that too well but I’m pretty sure in practice we’re gonna go over that just in case it happens again.”

And don’t doubt that it will happen at Arkansas if Washington and/or Wheeler cannot play.