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Andrija Jelavic couldn’t believe what he was seeing during Kentucky’s first-half performance at LSU Wednesday.
“In the first half, I was like, ‘These guys are so not better than us and we can do so much better,’” Jelavic said Friday. “We had a poor performance and that cannot happen against Tennessee. I’m not underestimating LSU, but Tennessee is a much more dangerous opponent than them and we need to be in it from the first minute. We know that.”
Jelavic is right. Kentucky dramatically rallied from 18 points down in the second half to win at LSU, the only winless team in Southeastern Conference play. Tennessee is one of the league’s better teams and is also reeling from recent home losses to UK and wants that pattern to change.
The Vols have the No. 11 overall defense nationally and rank 14th in defensive field goal percentage at 38.7 and 25th in 3-point percentage defense at 29.2. That means UK is not likely to go 8-from-11 from 3 against the Vols like it did at LSU in its huge comeback win.
Jelavic is now in the starting lineup after a stretch where he barely played. He has no explanation for UK’s repeated slow starts this season.
“Even Coach Pope, he’s adjusting the lineup so we cannot have a slow start. But I don’t really have an answer to that, I’m not going to lie,” he said.
Surprisingly, Jelavic said he never felt like UK was going to lose at LSU.
“At least in my mind, we were never losing that game in any manner. I even think the conversation at halftime was not like … there was no nervousness, there was no anger. They were just like, ‘What are we doing wrong and what can we upgrade to win this game?’” Jelavic said Friday.
“I knew we were going to cut the lead and we were going to lead at one point. I think even the guys … I can see it in their eyes, they never really thought we were going to lose that game. We showed a lot of character in the second half.”
Jelavic knows UK’s “number one problem” is falling behind — often by double figures — early in the game before fighting to get back in the game.
“That shows character and it’s inspirational, but against real opponents, you need 40 minutes of good games to win. That’s what we need to do,” he said.
Certainly they will need that against the Vols today in Knoxville.
“We feel really confident that we’re going to give a good fight. The team is in the right place, we feel really confident. We’re not underestimating them, but we believe in ourselves,” Jelavic said. “We believe in our players. We feel we’re going to win no matter what.
“We’re going to forget about that game (LSU) because we know this is our greatest game, our next game, and we’re just turning ourselves up.”
One Response
We need to play Jelly more. Moreno and him could be dominant next year if they both stick and stay. It's actually hard to cheer to much for these players because most of them are only here for a year.
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