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CHICAGO — Kentucky coach John Calipari has insisted his team would take more 3-point shots this season.
Maybe he was right because the Cats put up 38 3-pointers in Tuesday’s 89-84 loss to Kansas. It worked great in the first half when UK was 9-for-23 — including 9-for-18 to start the game — but in the second half the Cats missed 12 of 15 3-pointers.
Guards Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard were a combined 7-for-9 from 3 while the rest of the team was 5-for-29, including 3-for-17 by leading scorer Antonio Reeves.
After the game Calipari was asked if the game plan was to take that many 3-pointers or not. Here is what he said — and even partially answered the question.
“We had four at the end where we were trying to post the ball and I think three of the four were air balls. We’re a young team. Adou (Thiero) is young. He’s 19. So you might as well say he’s a freshman. He didn’t play much last year. So you’re out there with a bunch of young guys,” Calipari said.
“I got to do a really good job of showing them how to finish games. Then part of it is who should be in when you’re finishing the game. Like I got to figure that out. Like if you’re going to miss five straight shots at the end of the game you can’t be in then. Somebody else has got to be in. If you’re not defending, if you’re, you know, again, we had another game against the No. 1 team in the country that’s physical, deserves to be No. 1, we have eight turnovers. A couple of ‘em were, he got his arm grabbed…
“But there was a lot of good. I mean, we were, we didn’t have the 20 minutes — by fouling you knew what we were doing by running. We got to ‘em. And then we start fouling. So what happens when you foul? And they were not good fouls. Like why did you grab? Why did you reach in? If you were in bad position, let ‘em score because the game keeps going. Now you’re trying to run people down until you can get some breakouts and they got to call timeouts and that’s to your advantage.”
One Response
If Calipari really meant what he said in this article, Wagner and Edwards will go to the bench and get limited minutes until they earn more PT. Is that going to happen? No way, they are his pets. His goal for this season is to make both of them lottery picks even if it destroys our season. Calipari is just wrong for Kentucky. Buy him out and Barnhart too, then move on to the next coaching staff that is committed to winning championships at Kentucky.
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