Kam Williams (Vicky Graff Photo)
Before Kentucky beat Mississippi State 92-68 there was a clear message sent from UK coach Mark Pope to sophomore guard/forward Kam Williams that he needed to play better and take advantage of his playing time.
The Tulane transfer started five games when Mo Dioubate was injured but against Tennessee Tech, North Carolina and Gonzaga he had a combined nine points and 10 rebounds. He missed six of seven shots against North Carolina and Gonzaga. He came out of the starting lineup and had nine points against Indiana, 11 against St. John’s and 26 against Bellarmine when he made eight 3-pointers.
Just when he looked ready to take off, he regressed against Alabama and Missouri. However, he once again bounced back in a big way with 14 points on 5-for-8 shooting, five rebounds, two assists and two steals in 30 minutes against Mississippi State.
“I was proud of him tonight. For me, the marker with him is he is so explosive and long and effective downhill. When I see him getting downhill, I’m like, the world is good,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said after the Mississippi State win. “And it’s a part of his game he’s grown into.
“His confidence is growing in that area and his ability to see the opportunities he has is growing. It’s really important because that’s going to round out his offensive game so much. This was the best game he’s had that way. I’m proud of his progress. He’s doing a terrific job.”
He’s doing so well that he could be in the starting lineup tonight at LSU now that point guard Jaland Lowe is out for the season and center Jayden Quaintance will miss a second straight game with a recurring knee issue.
The 6-foot-8 Williams was so good against Mississippi State that he rated a +32 on the final stat sheet. The next closest was Malachi Moreno at +19.
“He came out and banged his very first three, but then he got downhill two out of the next three possessions,” Pope said at this press conference Monday. “That’s where he has a chance to be so impactful on the game and really punish teams.”
Williams had trouble hitting 3-pointers early this season even though she shot 41 percent from 3 last season at Tulane. He’s now at 35.5 percent at Kentucky and showing he can stretch the floor. Even better, he’s getting to the rim.
Pope now takes online questions from fans during his radio show and one wanted to know if Williams might be ready to become a starter. Pope said that could happen, especially with a season-ending injury to Lowe.
Williams gives UK scoring and flexibility at the 4 than Dioubate, a more powerful player with less skills, can provide.
“Kam was so good in practice today. My goodness, he was good,” Pope said on his radio show Monday.
Now Kentucky just needs him to be “so good” tonight at LSU as it tries to even its SEC record at 2-2. The Cats will not have center Jayden Quaintance who was listed as out on UK’s availability report Monday for the second straight game with a knee issue.
He didn’t play against Mississippi State and Moreno responded with 17 points on 8-for-10 shooting, eight rebounds, six assists and four steals in 28 1/2 minutes. He was just the third Kentucky player since 1996-97 with 17 points, 8 boards, six assists and four steals joining Rajon Rondo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Trent Noah Okay
Sophomore Trent Noah played only six seconds against Mississippi State after bumping knees with an opposing player. Noah pointed to his left knee and limped to the bench.
He had not played in a SEC game but apparently will be available tonight at LSU.
“I think he made it seven seconds, five seconds before he had to check back out with a knee injury,” Pope said during his radio show Monday. “Literally just one inbounds play and bumped knees pretty hard, but he was full go in practice today, which is just Trent Noah. I mean, just tough as nails.”
Pope made it sound like Noah could get more playing time soon.
“There are going to be more spaces, guaranteed 100 percent, there’s going to be more spaces this season where he comes in and helps us win games,” Pope said about Noah. “And he’s also got a great future as a basketball player. He’s a terrific young man and a great player.”
14 Responses
Maybe he'll feel right at home now that he's back in Louisiana.
Would someone introduce Coach Pope to the bear 3 point shooter on the team – NOAH !
Then Williams will get better openings to shoot since he won’t get all the 3-point line attention.
If we play hero ball, we lose. If we play team ball, we win.
The same is true gwme after game.
This GROUP of players has too many troublesome issues to blend into a TEAM.
I think many of us are wondering what is the Real plan for JQ. They appear to be showing that it will be a game-to-game decision, but is it really? It is a little difficult to comprehend how he could look so confident and productive his first game back and then very little in succeeding games. It did seem that he was in for too long in that first game and that might be reason for setback since. Here we are half way thru the season and Pope finally seems to be understanding that we need better spacing and more movement to get the ball inside and still not sure who our starting 5 should be.
I don't like to put so much meaning on one game but I do feel like this is a must win game. It might be one of the easiest road games we play in conference. These are the type of games we have to win especially with LSU being 0-3 in conference play. Win tonight and we are back to .500 in conference play 11-6 2-2 looks so much better than 10-7 1-3. Lose the game and I think it's almost impossible for us to make the tournament as strange as that sounds this early in the year. But 7 losses in 17 games and we are all of a sudden not even on the bubble for the tournament if it started today. We have to win this game and then win at least 3-4 in a row. Pope should have already figured out who is helping and who is hurting this team. It doesn't take a doctor to figure out which guys play great together. Johnson and Moreno always play great together on the court. Noah and Chandler also seems to feed off each other. I would love to see these 4 guys on the court with Kam Williams. Oweh has also improved so much. He only averaged 1.4 assist per game last year. Before the year started I said he needed to average at least 3-4 assist per game and he's averaging 3.1 assist per game. When he makes good passes and intense defense it takes his game to another level. When he gets his teammates more involved Kentucky looks like a much better team. This team goes as far as Oweh takes us. When he's locked in and is celebrating with his teammates and lifting them up the sky is the limit for this team. Oweh also scores more when he passes more. It seems like the team finds him more when he gives the ball up. Like I said this team is nothing without Oweh. We need him to be the best all around player on the team because he makes everyone better. He should have had 7 steals last game but was called for 2 fouls on 2 clean steals. Nobody else on the team can even come close to that. Moreno is the second best on the team at steals. Jelavic is also better than I thought he would be at anticipating passes. Jelavic needs to play at least 10-12 mins per game. If he plays good give him 15-16 mins. Noah needs to shoot at least 4-5 threes every game the same with Williams and Chandler. Chandler isn't hitting his 3s because he's thinking about passing the ball. He just needs to go up with a clean shot when he gets a look. Let's go we need Chandler to step his game up. It's very important for us going forward.
Another f'ed up first half and Pope doesn't have a clue of how to fix it. He needs to turn the offense over to Fox because he just doesn't get it!
17:28 time out, down 11, Moreno with 4 fouls, Aberdeen with 3. Can you say ZONE?
Thank God we were playing the LAST PLACE team in the conference! We won despite the LSU homecooking. That level of play won't beat Tennessee or Texas.
We go 2-12 from 3 in the first half and 8-11 in the second half…just 23 shots from 3. We need to get up at least 30 from 3 to beat a good team. We need Noah back on the floor.
A good but very, very luck win. It is hard to understand why Pope cannot get these guys to start a game with high energy, good game plan, and productive outcome. Will we ever have more than 5 pts after 5 mins of play? We had less than 10 pts after 10 mins. I am having hard time understanding why Jelavic wasn't in toward the end, and Garrison is still the biggest disappointment on the team.
Kentucky Kid stamped his name forever in Kentucky Basketball History and BBN! I need a drink or two !
I don’t even Drink but after this game I may start?
I had 3. Go Cats!!!
First half, we only had 2 assists…TWO! We should always start the offense with a pass or two to one corner or the other. When you catch the ball, you are either open or not. If open, shoot it immediately or pass it immediately before the defense recovers. The corner man either shoots it, or passes to the post, or drives to the post for a 10 foot shot, a layup, a pass to the 5 guy if his man picks you up, or throws it to the opposite corner for a wide open 3. You can start the play going to the other side as well. We are dribbling the ball too much, the defense can keep up with a dribble, or we are holding it too long thinking should I shoot or pass and the defense has recovered. We don't trust each other with the ball because we think…I am the hero, I need to find a shot somehow or at least force up one.
When the other team has really quick guards/wings who make mad runs to the rim, we have trouble staying in front of them without fouling. For those really fast teams, we need to play a zone to slow that down. We need to do so in the first half instead of waiting until we have foul trouble. Switch back on forth from man to zone to throw off their rhythm. We really should have a second zone to switch to in the second half to again throw off their rhythm and make them think.
Basketball is not a complicated game. If a once was like me can see this, why can't Pope? He has done absolutely nothing to get us off to a fast start. We need to be passing or sitting on the bench. If Dioubate or Garrison EVER horse up another 3, they should get benched immediately. We also need to be passing to Moreno up high instead of a bounce pass down low where even a guard can bother him. A high pass or lob is much easier for him to handle as well.
On defense…everybody stays to rebound. We don't run for a snowbird pass UNTIL we have the ball. We are losing too many long rebounds because we are already running to our rim. We have to shoot freethrows at minimum of 75% per half. Anyone who fails to do so in either half runs line drills the next day of practice. If you shoot 4 freethrows and miss 2, you run an extra line drill; miss 3 and run 2 extra line drills and do so for each half. Shooting 100% in a half does not excuse a less than 75% clip in the other half. You do the same for turnovers. You are allow 1 turnover per half; you run line drills for every turnover above 1. They need to do the same for anyone who HOLDS the ball for more than 1 second…you either shoot it or pass it or if you dribble it more than 4 bounces…you either shoot it or pass it.
We were EXTREMELY lucky to have won this game. We only shot 23 threes; we need to be shooting no less than 35. We are not a bad 3 point shooting team; we just don't have the confidence and/or courage to take the shot to start off the game. We should be taking 8 three point shots every 10 minutes…if we are moving the ball quickly, this would not be hard to do…open shots would be there. Take a 3, a 10 to 15 foot shot, or one 5 foot or closer to the rim; those are the shots that win games. We have no EASY games left on our schedule. It is time to start playing Kentucky ball and stop all of this hero shit!
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