Lamont Butler played through Georgia’s physical defense to score a team-high 20 points. (UK Athletics Photo)
It didn’t take long for Kentucky Radio Network analyst Jack Givens to know that UK could be in big trouble at Georgia — and he was right as the Cats fell 82-69 in their Southeastern Conference road opener.
“Kentucky missed some shots early around the basket, they missed open shots,” said Givens. “Jaxson Robinson could not find the basket early. This is big-time basketball.
“You cannot let a couple of missed shots early dictate how you are going to play and Jaxson let that get in his head and never got untracked on the offensive end of the floor.”
No he didn’t. He went 0-for-4 from the field before hitting a late 3-pointer that really did not impact the game. He finished with five points, two rebounds, one assist, one steal and one turnover in 27 minutes.
“Jaxson missed a couple of shots and was right at the basket wide open and never looked at the time and instead once threw the ball to Travis Perry in the corner. That sends a message to other teams that this is a style Kentucky does not want. Kentucky has to learn this is the way they will be played every night at home or on the road,” Givens said.
Of course, it wasn’t just Robinson. Andrew Carr was 2-for-7 from the field and had six points, five rebounds and one turnover in 24 minutes. Amari Williams was limited to just 13 minutes due to quick foul trouble and had two points on 1-for-4 shooting, five rebounds and one assist. Koby Brea, who was on fire against Florida, was battling illness and went 2-for-10 from the field, including 2-for-9 from 3-point range, in 27 minutes and finished with six points, three rebounds, one block and one steal.
Kentucky finished the game 24-for-64 from the field and 6-for-25 from 3. They also gave up 82 points and 38 free throws to a team that scored only 51 points in a loss at Ole Miss Saturday.
“It was just one of those kinds of games for Kentucky on the offensive end,” Givens said. “No player on this team has been on the road in the SEC, so hopefully it was a learning experience. This is a good warmup for what Kentucky is going to see almost every game in this league.
“I am glad the guys got to see what life is like on the road in the SEC and hopefully they learned from that because it won’t get easier.”
The one player who didn’t wilt was Lamont Butler who carried UK offensively in the first half. He finished with 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting and added four rebounds, season-high four steals and three of UK’s eight assists in his team-high 34 minutes.
“Lamont Butler is just amazing on defense,” Givens said. “There is no back off from physical play for him. Butler is not going to give up easily. He just laid it on the court on both ends. He was especially effective defensively. He caused the guards as much trouble as he possibly could and showed no signs of backing down.”
Too bad he didn’t have more help because after UK cut a 13-point halftime deficit to 55-50 with 12 minutes to play the offense went missing in action. Maybe the road atmosphere was too big even for veteran players. Maybe UK was too full of itself after the win over Florida. Whatever it was, Kentucky looked about as poor as it did in a loss to Ohio State in New York before Christmas.
The other bright spot was sophomore center Brandon Garrison who played 27 minutes because of Williams’ foul trouble. He had a season-high 13 points on 5-for-8 shooting, five rebounds, two steals, two blocks and two assists.
Butler and Garrison were a combined 13-for-22 from the field while the rest of the players were 11 of 44 — a 25 percent mark.
“Their guards come at you. If I am watching Kentucky, my first thing would be get physical with the guys on the perimeter. If the bigs score, fine. But the thing I noticed is how physical they (Georgia) were with the guards.”
6 Responses
I think just looking @ Florida beating Tennessee like they did , and UK beating Florida yet losing to Georgia . I think its just going to be like this weekly..win some lose some.
Oweh is the only one that doesn’t back away from contact.
We are a finesse team…we truly wish basketball was a non contact sport. When a team gets rough with us, we abandon Pope ball and go back to playing hero ball. The way to beat a physical defense is with the pass, not the dribble. You can’t quit shooting 3s when you miss a couple. Driving to the basket will always be double teamed…forcing up a wild shot hoping the refs will bail you out is a losing game, especially away from home.
As for rebounding and defense, both start with effort and moving your feet. We aren’t going to jump over guys to get a rebound, we have to box out and want that rebound more than the guy behind us. Defensively, you have to work your butt off to stay between your man and the basket. If you take pride in doing that, your adrenaline will kick in and will spill over to your offense. If you don’t take pride in playing defense, your guy gets by you where you have to push and grab…unless you just watch him go on by you to the basket…which we have done so many times.
Yes, we got some home cooking, but that is going to happen on the road…ALWAYS! That means you have to play harder and smarter…we did so against Clemson, but waited to long to do it; we didn’t do either against Ohio State or Georgia. Luckily, Florida tried to out talent us and we eeked out a win. They learned their lesson or did you not see what they did to Tennessee last night? Florida showed everyone how to lose to us. Georgia showed everyone how to beat us. What plan will Miss. State follow? and A&M? Bama may try to outplay us, but Vandy and the Vols will bring their clubs.
If we don’t embrace physical play and go back to playing Pope ball, it’s going to be a long season. It’s hard to coach toughness if it’s not in a team’s DNA. As far as playing Pope ball…we either doubt our confidence to do so or we don’t trust each other to do so, or simply we have a different agenda. If that’s the case, it will be hard for Pope to change that this year, but when he goes to the portal for next year, he needs to go after sophomores and juniors who aren’t NBA wannabes. The only thing Pope can do with this team is to go the bench and play kids who will listen to him. That would cost us some games we might otherwise win playing hero ball, but it would set the standard for next year and the year after as to what is expected at Kentucky. I would rather see us lose some playing the right way than win a few more playing the wrong way. Hopefully Pope will be committed to the future and not give in to this team.
Returning to selfish, individual BB instead of TEAM 1st ball should immediately result in being benched – regardless of who it is. Even if a ball hog happens to make a shot while being selfish the negative impact on the TEAM is much bigger and more costly than that 1 basket.
Shooting at horrendously low FG % when you take a LOT of shots is a clue to that person that he is not in sync, has no rhythm & should definitely pass the ball Instead of missing his 7th shot (or whatever) out of 9 attempts.
3-13
0-4 (0-4)
These type of stats for a player who gets 27 minutes and has ONLY ONE ASSIST is like adding ANTI-TEAM poison to the players on the floor.
Pope & his staff built a real winner (proven in games 1-5 and the 2 games prior to UGA. SOME SELFISH individuals don’t really respect or honor or care about UK on their jersey.
Just look at the PATHETIC A:TO ratio and the quick answer to the biggest problem is selfish players!!!
Crooked refs at Stegman Coliseum (& the other SEC road venues) is historically as sure as the sun rising early. I attended many UK games for years and years at UGA when living in Georgia and saw multiple versions of crooked, dishonest, evil, cheating, liar refs. I saw baskets taken away by falsely claiming the buzzer went off even when it was so evident it should count and later the replay at home really proves it.
Barry hit it!
PASS THE BALL instead of dribbling into a crowd (as if the fraud is your coach!) !!!
7-16 in the 4th segment was the beginning of the downfall and it never got much better. At that point the OR and the A:TO ratio as well as poor shot selection (without passing the ball), the selfish players had revealed themselves and the rest of the players were often denied touching the ball.
I do hope our marvelous “everything UK” coach either gets the message to the “traitors” (not playing TEAM 1st ball) or lets them ride the bench for a half or a while game or more or whatever it takes to get through to them that they are playing for a legendary program & a legendary coach (in the making)!!!
The ESPN computer only gives us a 36% chance of winning in Starkville.