Calipari says there is a reason Kentucky took only eight 3-pointers against Tennessee

Kentucky is not a high volume 3-point shooting team and only took eight 3-pointers in Saturday’s win over Tennessee, the second victory over top 10 Tennessee this season.

Was the game plan to not take many 3-point shots?

“Well much of the game we had Adou (Thiero) and Chris (Livingston in the game together). They’re okay 3-point shooters,” Calipari said.

“And Cason (Wallace), who went 0-for-8 last game. How did he do this game? 0-for3. So he’s 0-for-11. Would you tell him to shoot more 3’s? So you take what they give you and you take the shot you can make.”

Calipari left out that Wallace was also 0-for-4 from 3 against Georgia, so that means he’s 0-for-15 from 3 in the last three games.

Livingston took one 3-pointer Saturday and made it. Thiero did not attempt a 3. As a team, Kentucky went 3-for-8 with Jacob Toppin, Antonio Reeves and Livingston hitting a 3-pointer.Kentucky has made 170 of 465 3-pointers this season, a 36.6 percent mark. Reeves is 62 of 148, a 42 percent mark. Wallace, despite his recent slump, is 40 of 113, a 35 percent  mark. CJ Fredrick has 32 makes in 96 tries but he has missed six games, including the last three.

The latest NCAA statistics have Kentucky 305th in the nation in 3-point attempts per game at 18.3 and 255th in 3-pointers made per game with 6.6.

“We’re just trying to — how do we — what is the team giving us. We’ll take what they give you. And if that means we’re shooting 25, 30 3’s. We will. We’ve done it,” Calipari said.

“If that means we shot — geez, we were only 3-for-8. That’s like a UMass team. That’s truly refuse to lose.”

Tennessee has one of the nation’s best defenses and contested every shot it seemed. At Florida Wednesday, don’t be surprised to see the Cats with  more open looks outside  until they show Florida they can make shots, especially with the Gators without injured star center Colin Castleton.