Jacob Toppin knows UK needs everyone playing well to beat Georgia and eventually make the NCAA Tournament. (Vicky Graff Photo)
At least Kentucky senior Jacob Toppin said exactly the right thing Friday about the urgency the Cats better have at Georgia today.
“We have to start winning games, meaningful games. And that starts tomorrow,” Toppin said. “You can say it’s a sense of urgency but we’re still taking it day by day.”
Even though Toppin still believes UK could be a factor in NCAA Tournament play, he did acknowledge the obvious that coach John Calipari has yet to do — it is not a given UK will be part of March Madness after Tuesday’s home loss to Arkansas.
“Obviously, we have to get there (NCAA) and that starts with tomorrow. We’ve got to win tomorrow and just go on from there,” Toppin said Friday.
He said UK spent a lot of time at practice Thursday working on ball screen coverage that has been awful most of the season. He admitted UK needs a mindset focused on a “will to win” and willingness to do more to make that happen.
“We’re going to get better defensively because we want to win games, we want to make the tourney. There is a sense of urgency right now and we’re all ready to take on that battle,” he said.
“We’ve got to be better defensively in our ball screen coverage. And, as a team, stay connected on the defensive end. We’ve been working on it. Obviously, we’ve got to continue to work on it. We’ve gotten better but against Arkansas, we took a step back.”
Make it a huge step back because Arkansas scored at will on the Cats and shot 72 percent from the field the second half.
A loss to Georgia — a team UK beat 85-71 on Jan. 17 when the Bulldogs played Oscar Tshiebwe one-on-one and he went for 37 points and 24 rebounds — and the Cats would likely have to win out to even make the NCAA.
“Obviously, if I’m doing well, it gives us a better chance to win games. But it’s not just me, everyone has to do well,” Toppin said. “Against Arkansas, we only had like two people do well, everyone else was kind of struggling. We have to get back to all five guys on the court doing well.”
5 Responses
Players only repeat what they hear from their coaches. So, this message about needing urgency today comes from the coaching staff, and primarily from Calipari. Well, urgency should never be absent, not from the exhibition games, not from the blue-white game, not from the season’s opening game, not from any game.
Calipari cannot turn the urgency button on and off depending on his sense of how fans are reacting to his blunders.
When any basketball game against 14-10 Georgia is characterized as a "meaningful" game, it shows how far this program has sunk, and how the expectations have been lowered to demand acceptance of mediocrity as success.
This is BS, and comes straight out of the fraud to us via the players.
Turn out the lights , the party is over
The Season Is Over.
The Program is on life support.
Like I said previously, the words of a player are nothing more than a message planted by the coach.
This coach has no idea what a sense of urgency means, otherwise he would create it in his players, and no one would have to tell me that they now realize they need it.
Six games are left and we could very well lose all of them. Calipari has lost his ability to coach effectively. At this point in the season, its too late to talk about getting better; we are what we are. Roy Williams reached that point and was man enough to admit it and step down at North Carolina. Calipari is too much of a narcissist to do that. That’s what Barnhart is paid to do…make hard decisions that are in the best interest of the University of Kentucky. Barnhart doesn’t have the stones to make that call and will end up being dismissed from his job when Dr. Calipouto finally steps in to clean up this mess. How much more will our program and BBN have to suffer through before the inevitable happens?