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Kentucky didn’t have many poor games during Jack Givens’ junior and senior seasons as it reached the Elite Eight in 1977 and won the national title in 1978. However, when the Cats did have a bad game, Givens would tell coach Joe B. Hall that the team didn’t want a day off.
“As the team captain, I told him we wanted to have practice and work hard. That was the first thing I made sure the coaches understood,” said Givens on the UK Radio Network after UK lost 79-62 at South Carolina Tuesday night. “The rules are different now and you have to give guys days off. I am glad Coach Hall did not have that or he would have broken the rules and got in trouble.”
Kentucky had a physical team when Givens played but he still remembers a drill Hall liked where team managers would use football dummy blocking pads and beat on players as they got near the basket.
“We didn’t have a choice but to get tougher and accept the physical play that was coming,” Givens said. “If (assistant coaches) Leonard Hamilton and Dicky Parsons got hold of those dummies, then every part of our body would be hurting.
“I would bring them in (UK’s current players) and do that but I know they don’t do that now. But you can’t mimic that kind of physicality they saw in the game.”
Givens noted losing is never good but it especially hurts when a team wins by just being tougher physically like South Carolina did. The Gamecocks challenged UK physically and the Cats did not respond.
“The real problem now is every team Kentucky plays is going to play them the same way. You have got to learn to live with that and dish a little bit out yourself which they did not do,” Givens said.
“Some things you can improve on. One thing you don’t get in practice is guys beating up on each other. This time of year you can’t say to guys to get more physical, hit somebody, and knock somebody down.
“You have to figure out how to anticipate that and then accept it and figure out how to play and handle it.”
One Response
Arkansas is in 12th place in the SEC having lost 5 of their last 6 games by an average of 20 points. They don’t have the beef that South Carolina has. They will think they can bully us though since we have the reputation of being soft. We need to have Shepperd running the point with Dillingham and Waggoner on the wings. Z and Mitchell need to start and play 25 minutes with Bradshaw and Onyenso as backups. If Shepperd is not running the offense, it will be one on one play that is easy to defend. Shepperd has to look for his shot too, but that will come if the ball is moving.