Latest Comeback Bid Foiled, Calipari Needs More from Cats
The Wildcats had tempted fate twice in a row, only to mount furious second-half rallies and escape with victories over West Virginia and Vanderbilt.
The third time was anything but a charm against Missouri.
“Disappointing, but give Missouri credit,” John Calipari said. “They beat us. It wasn’t just what we did to ourselves. They beat us.”
Kentucky tried to follow the same blueprint for the third game in a row, finding itself down double figures in the second half of a trip to Missouri. The first comeback bid brought UK to within one soon after trailing by 10 at halftime. The second gave the Tigers (15-8, 5-5 Southeastern Conference) a scare in the final minutes, but came up short in a 69-60 defeat for the Cats (17-6, 6-4 SEC).
“Give Missouri credit,” Calipari said. “They did a great job and fought and I thought we had our chances start of the second half. And then we come down and do freshman stuff and they go basket, basket. And all of a sudden, you look up it’s nine. Like, what just happened?”
The outcome hammers home the lesson UK’s coaches have been trying to deliver even after back-to-back comebacks: that consistent urgency – not only in the midst of desperation – is the only path to consistent success.
“We got a couple guys that are playing better when we’re down,” Calipari said. “My thing is, you can’t wait to be down to play this way. This has gotta be who we are. This one should sting them, but we’ll see.”
Jarred Vanderbilt had the look postgame of a player who was suitably stung.
“Whether we’re down 10, up 10, just fight the whole game,” said Vanderbilt, who can’t be faulted for his fight in posting eight points and 10 rebounds. “Give max effort when you’re out there and pretty much just bring energy. We need to do it as a team, not just a couple players. The whole team.”
The closest UK came to that kind of complete team effort was in the two rallies that bookended the second half. Calipari was coaching his heart out in both, hoping his players would follow his lead. Lapses in focus and execution, however, didn’t allow that to happen.
“The problem is you gotta have a team thinking like you think as a coach and if a guy’s not playing well, when they’re this young, it’s hard for them,” Calipari said. “They’re not thinking about anything else. They’re thinking about how they’re playing.”
For a group of 18- to 19-year-olds, that sort of thinking isn’t borne out of any kind of ill will or inherent selfishness. Rather, players are simply unable to snap out of focusing internally.
“What young guys do when they’re trying to establish themselves is they’re defensive and they’re into their own self,” Calipari said. “So they lose some of the stuff, the team stuff. And we gotta get through this.”
Though not even he has any experience dealing with a team quite this young, the Cats couldn’t have a better coach to get them through this than Calipari.
“I’ve just done it 30 years, so you kind of get to where this is all part of it,” Calipari said. “And the good news for me, I haven’t been through a whole lot of these. As I get older, they get harder to deal with. But I’ll say this: I love winning and enjoy winning and bringing teams together and seeing guys get better. Sometimes you gotta be hard on them. Tell them, ‘Your will is not stronger than mine.’ And so we’re kind of in that with this group.”
The road ahead is difficult for UK. Of their eight remaining games, four are on the road and five are against the other five teams in the top six among league standings. There is a way forward, but it’s on the Cats to take it.
“I still believe in this team and I still believe we have the most upside of any team in the country,” Calipari said. “It’s just that unless you play together as a team, unless you create shots for each other, unless you cover for each other defensively, unless you talk more, you can’t ever become a good team.”
