ATLANTA – The mystery of the “tweak” John Calipari made in practice this week may forever go unsolved. Was it an emphasis on guard play to generate better ball movement? More zone? Physical play? Or perhaps it was a DVD shredding of this season’s films the players talked about after the game.When a reporter suggested in the postgame press conference that it involved Andrew Harrison and getting his teammates more involved, Coach Cal interrupted.”That’s not the tweak,” he said. “Keep guessing though.”Whatever it was, the second-seeded Wildcats (23-9) built off the adjustment(s) made in practice this week and turned in arguably their finest performance of the year. After struggling against LSU (19-13) in two regular-season meetings, the Cats smashed the Tigers 85-67 on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament.”I think you saw a different team today with what we had been working on,” Calipari said.Perhaps the biggest adjustment of all was just a change in attitude and an increase in confidence the tweaks helped produce. Calipari was hoping his team would get its “mojo” back in the SEC Tournament, and they’re off to a good start with Friday’s rout.”We’ve just been waiting for it,” Alex Poythress said. “We practiced real hard this week, came together. We got killed Monday and Tuesday but we just came out and we were ready to play hard and focus on winning this tournament.” In one of their most dominant performances of the season, Kentucky shot 47.3 percent from the field, held LSU to 40.7 percent – an especially impressive feat after the Tigers opened the game with a blistering 8-for-10 start – and out-rebounded a physical LSU team 48-32.UK’s 18-point margin of victory was its largest since Jan. 25, its 87 points were its most since Jan. 28 and its 15 assists were its most since Feb. 18.Quite clearly, Friday was the type of performance Kentucky needed after losing three of four to close the regular season and failing to come anywhere close to the preseason expectations the Cats have shouldered all season.”They’re in the right frame of mind,” Coach Cal said. “They had a swagger.”   For all the changes, Calipari said none of them would matter if the Cats didn’t come together when adversity hit. He wondered what would happen when something would go wrong. Would the Cats play through it or would they revert back to old habits like they have done so many times this season?They answered a couple of major bouts of adversity Friday night. The first came right out of the gate. After all the talk this week of improving play and a change in mindset for Kentucky, LSU picked up where it left off the when it hit 11 3-pointers against Alabama by sinking two to start the game. Those forced Calipari to call timeout just 1:01 into the game. Panic immediately set in with the overwhelming blue crowd in the Georgia Dome.”We start the game and we’re not ready for how they were trapping,” Calipari said. “Not their fault. That’s my fault. So when I called timeout, I just said, ‘Settle down, this is not on you; this is on us. Just keep playing. We’re going to be fine.’ “LSU didn’t slow down out of the timeout, hitting two more 3-pointers and eight of its first 10 shots, but the Cats hung around thanks to a more efficient offense.When LSU took a 22-14 lead, that’s when Kentucky turned it on. Coach Cal moved to his 2-3 zone – which he’s used with more frequency this season – and Willie Cauley-Stein turned it on defensively.The Cats went on a 23-3 run to take control of the game, holding LSU to just four field goals in 17 attempts after the scorching start.”Regardless of whatever you think you the tweak was, it started on the defensive end and that’s what led to us getting easier baskets and us getting a big lead,” Julius Randle said.In one sequence during the run, Cauley-Stein blocked a shot, got a second-chance bucket and then swatted another shot that set up a jumper for Andrew Harrison, UK’s first lead of the game.”My mindset was just go in, try to rebound everything, try to block everything and sprint both sides of the floor,” Cauley-Stein said. “That’s all I really tried to do.”But the Cats weren’t out of the woods yet.As this young team has done before, the Cats lost their focus midway through the second half and LSU clawed its way back to within three points.But just when it looked like UK was reverting back to its old ways, Poythress, who struggled for most of the game, hit a key 3-pointer from the left elbow. That started a 7-0 run that gave Kentucky a little breathing room.”Like Coach says, when the rain drops it just shows how you react, and I think we reacted pretty good,” Randle said. “We were able to bust it back open.”The Cats busted it open with a second-half 15-4 run, highlighted by another Cauley-Stein dunk and a pair of Aaron Harrison 3-pointers.”With how we played down the stretch, they could have gotten rattled. They didn’t. It showed me a ton,” Coach Cal said. “LSU makes a run; they had a will to win. That’s exactly what we wanted to see and I’m really proud of them.”Four Wildcats scored in double figures, led by James Young’s 21 points, 17 of which came in the first half.Though Randle struggled to make shots both from the field and from the free-throw line, he still finished with a monster stat line of 17 points and 16 rebounds, his fifth straight double-double and 19th of the season.Dakari Johnson was a load down low with nine points and a career-high 11 rebounds, and Aaron Harrison added 14 points. But perhaps most important of all was Andrew Harrison’s career-high eight assists. Andrew Harrison said Calipari put the ball in his hands and gave him the freedom to make plays.”It felt great,” Andrew Harrison said. “I know I wasn’t playing to my full potential. Inconsistently I was playing pretty bad. I just wanted to come out here and get the ball to my teammates in the right position.”Said his twin brother, Aaron: “As a point guard and running our team, he was amazing. (This) is what we get when he plays like that and runs our team.”It would be silly to say the Cats have figured it out with the rollercoaster ride they have been on this season, but there is undoubtedly a renewed sense of spirit after Friday’s performance.”We’re maturing as a team,” Randle said. “It just goes to show that it’s been a long, difficult season, but the biggest thing I can say is I’m proud of my team because no matter what we’ve gone through this whole year we’ve stayed the course.”Calipari just wishes he could have discovered the changes earlier.”You ask the question, ‘Well, why weren’t you doing it earlier?’ I don’t know,” Calipari said. “We had a bunch of freshmen. I was trying to figure out how they needed to play.”Maybe he has figured out how they need to play or maybe it is just one-game fool’s gold. Everyone will find out more Saturday when Kentucky plays the winner of Ole Miss-Georgia in the semifinals, but there’s no doubt UK opened a few people’s eyes Friday and perhaps put a scare back into the rest of the nation.”Now let’s see if we can continue on this path and really make some people mad,” Calipari said. To bring you more expansive coverage, CoachCal.com and Cat Scratches
will be joining forces for the postseason. You can read the same great
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