Vicky Graff Photo
Kentucky finally seems to have its momentum going the right way going into a regular-season ending game at Tennessee Saturday.
The Vols clinched the SEC championship with a win at South Carolina Wednesday but are in line for a NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed for the first time ever and need a win over UK to keep that hope alive.
Kentucky needs a win over Tennessee to secure a No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament and strengthen its bid for perhaps a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Kentucky coach John Calipari hopes his team has learned that it had “some trap games” recently where it didn’t respond well.
“You know how worried I was about the Arkansas game. I hate to tell you, I was worried about this game too,” Calipari said after Wednesday’s win over Vanderbilt. “If you were at our shootaround, you would know. I was not mean or nasty but I was on it.
“I needed them to be on it because I knew Vandy would come out and play well like every team that we play. And that we were going to have to play well over 40 minutes and we could get them. But you are not going to play bad. We would have been down 12, 15 at the half. We made some shots to go up five.
“So, you know, you want them to learn about trap games. And every game this team plays, they are the youngest team in the country. Every game they play, it’s another experience they get to see. When you’re playing against 23 and 24 year olds, they’ve been through all of these experiences. These kids have not. Vandy came out and tried to throw some zone at us. They did some different things. I thought we responded.”
4 Responses
Cal was worried about the Vandy game also?? What a pile of Bull Crap. They basically have played this way all year especially starting the games and carrying thru at least halftime. This is a dysfunction more on the coaching staff.
❤️💙🏀💙 GO BIG BLUE ❤️💙🏀💙
Beating Vandy was a given…sorta, and so will be the beatdown we receive in Knoxville. The next "trap" game will come on Thursday. IF we should survive that game, the loss we will receive on Friday will come from a better team. Calipari puts "pet" development ahead of team development. That is why we will be early exits from both tournaments, but if Edwards and Wagner get drafted in the NBA second round, it was all worth it, huh Jimmy Jimmy?
It is very hard to find optimism moving forward including tomorrow. These kids all seem like great kids that really get along, are very athletic, but do not want to play D, do not have good team consistency, and do not receive good coaching. It will be rinse and repeat of last few years.
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