Kentucky's defense could not stop Texas A&M. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky was so desperate to try and get defensive stops against Texas A&M that coach John Calipari went to a zone defense, something he almost never does.
“We’ve been working on zone. We were good for a minute. You make a sub, one guy gives up two 3’s. Part of it, we hadn’t played it that much, but we were prepared to go to it if the guards kept getting downhill,” Calipari said.
“But you got to have plan B in that thing. I think we do. Crazy thing was there were times we weren’t bad defensively. They just made, like, a tough shot.”
Calipari said his team had communication mistakes and was not talking enough on defense — again.
“A young team. They don’t talk enough. A guy can’t hear what they’re saying and gets clipped a little bit,” Calipari said. “We have shown that we can guard the best teams in the country. We have shown that you can score a hundred on us. We just got to lock in and know we’ve got to get better defensively.”
Calipari then added a different take that bad offense can bleed into the defense.
“When you’re not passing the ball to each other, and everybody’s not touching the ball, it bleeds into your defense, too. But they did this to us down there, too. We knew,” Calipari said about the regular-season loss to Texas A&M.
6 Responses
Only 1 person paid or assigned to be a coach would not start Sheppard & Dillingham. There is not a college coach, HS coach, Middle School coach or pee wee league coach who would repeatedly start the same players (pet #1 Ball Hog Wagner & Edwards) every game when they put UK in a hole, often a DEEP hole, in the 1st 4 to 5 minute segment. Only one pseudo-coach, aka FRAUD, would REFUSE to start the 2 players who rally UK again and again to overcome (or attempt to overcome) the deficit the fraud insists on burdening UK with game after game!
How many players have been jerked off the court as fast as the sideline circus can grab a sub because of ONE mistake? Over & over! But how many of his PETS have unlimited mulligans – mistake after mistake and they NEVER get pulled out of the game because they are his pets he wants to get drafted.
How many times and how many things does he have to do to undermine the UK BB program because he only wants to pretend he has made some freshmen become a pro, before some fans wake up & smell the coffee.
Why was it such a big deal when MKG unselfishly told the fraud to let Darius Moller START in the NCAA Regional for which Miller scored 20+ points to lead UK to a win on their way to the 2012 National Title? It’s because STARTING is a reward for hard work and success in prior games!!!
The ultimate display of ARROGANCE, IGNORANCE & anti-UK decisions is to not START the 2 players who have rescued UK again and again after the fraud has used the starting role to promote his pets.
UK will bite the dust AGAIN the 1st weekend because UK does not have a real coach!!!
If Cal changed anything up now he would totally destroy the chemistry of the team destined to win it all. Once again, who has Cali-fraudi and staff really coached up this year? Look at all the other SEC teams that have improved during the year, and they have done it with inferior talent and superior coaching.
Not sure any coach in the SEC is "superior".
But I get your point.
Little Baron makes the point I have been making, albiet ineffectively, all season long.
This fix, implemented for the NCAA tournament, will be too little too late because the fraud has already conditioned the group of players to not only lose, but be OK with the loss, just as I have been told repeatedly Reed is OK with coming off the bench.
This fraud is responsible, and he must go if there will ever be a UK team back in legitimate pursuit of a national championship.
I’ve grown old hearing the “young team” excuse.
Sick of it.
Indeed. Having a turnstile system is how Cal has chose to do business. Inherently his teams will be young. It’s his job to speed up the basketball aging process. To be saying we’re young in March means what he’s doing doesn’t work. Especially and oddly the claim his team is built for March.