UK Athletics Photo
So much for a letdown after beating Duke.
Kentucky never gave visiting Lipscomb a chance to even think about an upset by jumping on top 20-6 and rolled to a 97-68 win Tuesday night in Rupp Arena.
“We can’t get comfortable, Duke was a big win but we have got to keep marching forward,” said guard Jaxson Robinson. “Just trying to lead the guys and stay vocal. That is the biggest thing for me.
“Just being unselfish. If we can all work together and not worry about the box score and what is doing on with social media and just take care of ourselves we will be fine.
Robinson missed all four shots he took against Duke and scored only one point. He had a team-high 20 points — UK has had a different leading scorer in each game this season — on 6-for-10 shooting from the field overall, 3-for-6 from 3 and 5-for-5 at the foul lines. He also had seven rebounds.
“I feel like for me personally I let my team down with my body language (against Duke). I just wanted to make sure I was aggressive,” Robinson said.
Coach Mark Pope was not worried about Robinson. He played for Pope the last two years at BYU and Pope was confident Robinson would bounce back from his Duke offensive performance.
“Guys want to get you going but if you are not pursuing opportunities that falls on him,” UK Radio Network analyst Jack Givens said about Robinson’s play. “He was active, created shots off the dribble, got out in transition and then spotted up and hit 3’s. That is his game.”
Lamont Butler put up16 points and went 3-for-3 from 3-point range. Koby Brea also went 3-for-3 from 3 and scored 12 points — he was fouled on his other 3-point attempt and made all three free throws — and also had seven rebounds. In four games Brea is 15-for-19 from 3.
Kentucky was 12-for-25 from 3-point range and for the first time in UK history the Cats have hit 10 or more 3’s in the first four games.
“Boy, oh boy, you leave your man for a second, and they hurt you. Hit 12 3’s tonight and we fouled ’em on three more. Tough team to defend,” Lipscomb coach Lennie Acuff said. “It’s really pleasing to the eye if you don’t have to guard ’em.”
Starting center Amari Williams just missed a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds. Otega Oweh continued his impressive offensive play as he went 5-for-6 from the field and scored 14 points in only 15 minutes after getting in early foul trouble.
Lipscomb was just 26-for-67 from the field — 38. 8 percent — and missed 24 of 29 3-point attempts.
“I know how good this Lipscomb team is at passing and executing and the problems they cause defenses,” Givens said. “Kentucky accepted the challenge. They didn’t give a lot of backdoor cuts and did not get beat in transition.”
Robinson credited the coaches for a solid scouting report to help the defense.
“They (coaches) put in a ton of hours to make sure we are prepared (defensively),” Robinson said. “I think we scout them very well no matter who we are playing.”
11 Responses
So far this team reminds me of the 2012 national champion team, when they hit the floor they take care of business. It’s early but I like what I’m seeing from this group.
We won the game by a wide margin, but did we get better? Up until now we were leading the country in assists; tonight we only had 10. Granted, Lipscomb was a weaker team and that allowed for more individual play. We did not have to choose to play that way, but we did.
We shot 48% from the 3point line, but only took 25 shots from there. Pope said he wanted 35 shots from there, but with that percentage we should have taken 50. Koby Brea is shooting 79% from behind the arc, but he only got 3 shots from behind the arc last night…we should have fed him for 20. Butler had a nice scoring game, but only had 1 assist, Oweh only had 1, Kriisa had 2, and Perry had none.
What was going on? Everybody was looking for his own shot, and against a team like Lipscomb, could get it. This was the worst ball movement we have had in this young season. Williams only had 2 assists, but he rarely touched the ball except for his 11 rebounds and 2 blocks. Our offense had been running through Williams. That pulls his man away from the basket and draws the perimeter guys toward him as well. That is where he is lethal hitting guys cutting to the basket, but more importantly with the defense keying on him, he finds the guy with the open 3 and does so without dribbling for 20 seconds.
Playing teams like Lipscomb are to help us develop chemistry and buy into Pope’s motion offense that looks for the 3. We took a step back last night despite the big win. There was more dribbling and one on one play last night than in the previous 3 games combined. At times, we looked more like Calipari’s OAD NBA wannabes than like the team we have seen in the first 2 games.
Give Duke some of the credit for that. They ran us off of the 3point line and made us play a 2 point shot game and we had to adjust. Last night, we came out looking for a drive to the basket instead of 3 passes for an open 3. We are good enough to win 75% of our games playing that way, but if we want to win 90% and beat teams like Alabama, Tennessee, and Auburn in the SEC and teams like Gonzaga, UConn, and Kansas on the way to a Final 4 and possibly number 9…we need to get back to playing Pope ball.
Again, we were up big, but we let Lipscomb score 42 points in the second half. Am I the only one who saw this? I’m sure Pope did and will be working on getting us back on track the next 3 games to play Clemson and Gonzaga.
This team has the opportunity to be something really special, but we will only do that if they buy into Pope’s system and not revert back to what they learned at previous schools. Jaxson knows this better than anyone, but he needed to have a bounce back game from the 1 point outing he had against Duke. The rest of the team followed his lead.
Maybe the big jump in the rankings got us to thinking we have already arrived. Carr won the game with Duke and was named the SEC player of the week, but we rarely looked to get the ball to him last night. Why? I know we had a big win, but playing that way is not going to bring number 9 to Lexington in April. I’m not sure I can explain last night’s game. Maybe the Professor will see this post and he will have some answers. Maybe it doesn’t need explaining this early in the season. Regardless, I have faith in Mark Pope and I am confident he will get us back to playing Pope ball instead of Calipari ball and give us a shot at a Final 4 and possibly winning No. 9! Go CATS!!!
I am not sure Carr wanted the ball anymore than he got it. You have to work hard to be non factor and that he did. He had most mins (25) and fewest points (2) which would be pretty embarrassing for most tall, skilled guys like that. I have questioned his Dog, and I hope he doesn’t turned out to be an on/off guy from game-to-game. Kudos to he Jax man! That was a great turnaround. This is a very exciting brand of BB, and I think the guys may be exceeding our expectations up till now.
Just saying Mike he was great against Duke and seems to me to be a kid who doesn’t force anything and is willing to let other teammates shine when he’s not needed to be the man in a 30 point win.
Barry just chill you can’t define one game how the season may go. You think too much ahead of time it’s a long season.
79, I knew I would hear from you, LOL! All of these Popcorn State games are really practice games under live conditions. You play how you practice. You show how you have practiced when the real games arrive…like Duke, Clemson, Gonzaga, Louisville, Ohio State, and the entire SEC slate of games. We did have 17 assists against Duke but only put up 25 three point shots. Our next game we only put up 25 threes again, but only had 10 assists. Reverting back to me first, dribble first, shoot first like we did against Lipscomb is rat poison to the team that Pope is trying to build. I guess you didn’t listen to what Pope said after the Lipscomb game. That is why I posted his comments here. I watched Gonzaga destroy Baylor. I watched Alabama thump Illinois last night. Both teams are playing Pope ball better than we are right now. Playing like we did against Lipscomb is Calipari ball, but if I recall you were an ardent Calipari lover. We can get away with playing like that against a Popcorn State like team, but then when a real team appears on the schedule we aren’t going to remember yeah, we are supposed to pass first and screen for another guy, pass again and cut to the basket, and pass one more time giving up a good shot for a great shot…a 3 point shot. Oh yeah, that means we are supposed to put up at least 35 three point shots and need to have 20+ assists as a team to do that. Pope knows that at this early point in the season, we are either going to revert back to what is comfortable which is Calipari ball or he has to get them focused on playing Pope ball again… right now. He made mention of it in his postgame comments, but I’m pretty sure he is going to be preaching it in practice until they buy back into his system…as he should. We got rid of Calipari because we were sick and tired of the product he was putting on the floor. You didn’t jump on this bandwagon until after another first round NCAA loss AGAIN. BBN does not want to EVER go back to Calipari style basketball. Maybe me being an ardent Calipari hater makes me hypersensitive to Calipari style basketball in any form at any point of the season. I knew Pope would say the same things that he said even before the game was over because he saw the same things that I saw. I am not a coach but that Calipari style of play literally jumped off the TV screen. Maybe it reminded you too much of a lost love, but Kentucky basketball is moving forward and we have no need for anything Calipari going forward. If that upsets you, then that’s your problem. I guarantee you that on February 1 when the FRAUD comes back to Lexington, there will be no love shown to him then unless some of the Calipari lovers do it in secret back in their living rooms. Go ahead and criticize me again, but Arkansas is already realizing what they have in Calipari. If my sounding the alarm too loud or too soon about not ever wanting to see anything Calipari like in our basketball team, that is just how I bleed blue.
Oh, for all of the Rah Rahs who will be screaming at me for being critical of last night’s win, here is an excerpt from an interview Pope gave after the game.
It was another dominant win last night as the Cats took down Lipscomb, 97-68. Kentucky shot 12/25 from beyond the arc, and Mark Pope said after the game:
“We were good in a lot of areas. We only got up 25 3s. That’s not us. That’s not who we’re supposed to be.”
Kentucky basketball is in good hands.
Another Mark Pope statement on last night’s game:
where do you see improvements needed in three-point shooting so far this season?
MARK POPE: Well, when you say that, the first thing I’m disappointed. How did we not make 10 3s a game in 96? What are we doing, guys? I’m going to call the boys, like boys, what are we doing? So that is my first reaction. The second reaction is that’s great. We’re going to have games where we don’t make 10 3s. I’m more worried about the attempts, right? We’ve got to keep pushing the attempts. You know, I’m nitpicking because our guys played terrific tonight. I thought they were great. We only had 10 assists, that’s not us, the ball, you know give credit to Lipscomb, they were really out of help a lot in this game. It ended up with a lot of guys having open shots where they didn’t have to earn it for each other, it was just standing there open and you know, we shot 48% from three. I would like to just get more of them. But I’m proud of that, it’s a really important part of our team. I would be more excited if we were at 35 three-point attempts a game, but I will take the 10 makes for sure.
Rah Rah Rah!!!
I won I gave them the point spread I bet over 160.5 which we barely went over in the last minute. I also bet that Louisville would cover against bellarmine and that eastern Kentucky would cover the spread. I only bet 20$ and won 350$. I’m so mad I usually bet 100$ but I was shaky about the Louisville bellarmine game. If I would have bet the 100$ I would have won 1750$. I’m so mad at myself lol.
Anywho I love Almonor. He is a instant spark off the bench. If any guy deserves more minutes its definitely him. Maybe 3-5 more minutes a game. Also Brea is even better than I thought at 3s. He is shooting almost 80%!?
Be careful Terry. A friend of mine was a big sports bettor. He would win some and lose some, but then he won big! He was found murdered the next day…and the money was gone! It was widely thought that the bookie put a "recovery" hit on him, but nothing was ever proved.