UK Not Caught off Guard by Second-Round Tilt vs. Buffalo
BOISE, Idaho – With all the talk of a potential second-round matchup between Kentucky-Arizona, the question – about two perennial programs loaded with future pros facing off – was inevitable.
John Calipari entertained it, but only briefly. Two decades of coaching in March Madness has taught him how little good looking ahead does.
“You can’t look ahead because a lot of times you look ahead and the team you’re worried about doesn’t even advance,” Coach Cal said on Wednesday. “And you spent three days, ‘My god, we’re going to have to—. They got beat. Who am I worried about now?’ “
Had Calipari spent more time obsessing over Arizona, it would have all been wasted when Buffalo scored the upset of the NCAA Tournament’s first day in blowout fashion.
“Coach warned us before the game, ‘You never know with this thing who you could play,’ and it happened for us last night,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We’re playing the underdog tomorrow.”
The underdog and 13th-seeded Bulls (27-8) are the darlings of the Big Dance so far, drawing comparisons to Florida Gulf Coast and its 2013 run to the Sweet 16 as a 15 seed. Buffalo played fast and free to down Arizona, 89-68, and set up a matchup with No. 5 seed UK (24-10) on Saturday at 5:15 p.m. ET at Taco Bell Arena.
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| Kentucky vs. Buffalo | ||
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Sat., March 17 – 5:15 p.m. ET |
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| Coverage | ||
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TV: CBS |
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| UK | 2017-18 Team Stats | UB |
| 25-10 | Record | 27-8 |
| 10-8 | Conference Record | 15-3 |
| 76.8 | PPG | 84.9 |
| 70.4 | Opp PPG | 75.6 |
| .471 | FG% | .476 |
| .405 | Opp FG% | .426 |
| 38.5 | RPG | 38.8 |
| .356 | 3PT FG% | .375 |
| .300 | Opp 3PT FG% | .325 |
| .701 | FT% | .698 |
| 13.3 | APG | 16.8 |
| 5.6 | SPG | 6.3 |
| 4.8 | BPG | 4.1 |
That surprised many, but not Wenyen Gabriel. The sophomore forward, speaking after UK had beaten Davidson in its own first-round game, was quick to point out a game still had to be played when a reporter asked him to break down Arizona as the Wildcats’ likely next opponent.
“I’ve seen Buffalo play a little bit,” Gabriel said. “I know they’re a really good team. We watched some film on them, and know they’re a great team. We’ll have to come out really prepared to beat this team.”
Led by Nate Oats, the Bulls are in their third NCAA Tournament in four seasons after sweeping the Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament championships. In fact, preparing for Buffalo has brought back some memories for Calipari, who remembers well his days of coaching a program not expected to go deep in the NCAA Tournament.
“They won their league,” Calipari said. “They won their league tournament a couple of years running now. They’re good. This is no—I’m just telling you. I’ve lived it. I had that kind of team. I had guys with chips on their shoulders. It’s fun to coach those guys.”
The win over Arizona was certainly Buffalo’s best performance of the season, but it hardly came out of nowhere. The Bulls have won seven games in a row and feature double-figure scorers in CJ Massinburg (16.9 ppg), Nick Perkins (16.6 ppg), Jeremy Harris (15.4 ppg) and Wesley Clark (14.6 ppg) who are all juniors and seniors. Clark will be a familiar face to UK fans after he spent his first three seasons at Missouri and averaged 11.8 points in four games against the Wildcats.
“We came into yesterday’s game not really changing too much of how we play,” Massinburg said. “We’re going to come into the game with Kentucky not changing anything. We want to stick to our base. We always want to be the hardest-playing team every time we step on the floor, no matter who we’re playing against and stuff like that.”
Flying around as the Bulls did on Thursday night, they won over neutral fans in Boise, Idaho, and basically had a home-court advantage by the end of the game. That figures to bleed into Saturday, creating a unique atmosphere for UK to face, but the Cats aren’t going to yield the title of hardest-playing team to Buffalo easily.
“I think we play with just as much passion if not more,” Sacha Killeya-Jones said. “I think we’re a really passionate team. We love this and we’re ready to win any game.”
UK also figures to enjoy facing an opponent in Buffalo that won’t be afraid to run with the Wildcats. In fact, running is what the Bulls do. Buffalo ranks 17th nationally in adjusted tempo according to kenpom.com and averages 84.9 points per game, sixth in the country.
“Personally I love that style of basketball,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I think we play—that’s our best style of basketball. That’s when we’re at our best, when we’re able to get out in transition and use our athleticism.”
That’s not going to change Buffalo’s approach though, and it shouldn’t. The Bulls proved what they can do on Thursday.
“Sometimes teams can, like, stick around with a high major and come down to the last shot and hit a lucky buzzer-beater, and go crazy,” Massinburg said. “But I feel like our win wasn’t like that yesterday. Our win showed that. You heard Charles Barkley, you hear people saying that we dominated them. And that’s not really a fluke, you know.”
Nonetheless, the Cinderella moniker isn’t going away for Buffalo, nor is the David vs. Goliath label for this game. The storylines might make for good TV, but facing an underdog doesn’t matter a whole lot to Gilgeous-Alexander and the Wildcats.
“I guess you could say it makes them dangerous or something like that, but we don’t see it as danger,” he said. “We just see them as human beings that play basketball. We’re just going to compete and give them our best.”
Kentucky Outlasts Davidson in Tournament Opener
As Tennessee made a run to erase a double-digit lead in the Southeastern Conference Tournament, John Calipari was almost happy.
Of course he wanted to win the game, but he had a bigger goal in mind: preparing his team for the next tournament. In the NCAA Tournament, he knew similar circumstances would eventually arise.
One game in, Coach Cal has already been proven right.
“Teams are not going to go away no matter what,” Wenyen Gabriel said. “You gotta keep fighting. They made their run. They’re a good 3-point shooting team. That’s expected of them. I like how we fended it off and we came through with the W.”
Through 20 minutes, UK appeared poised to use its superior size and athleticism to cruise past a quality Davidson squad and into the second round. Soon after the start of the second half, Coach Cal’s Wildcats found themselves thankful to have withstood that Tennessee run five days ago. Armed with that experience, fifth-seeded Kentucky (24-10) found a way to down No. 12 Davidson at Taco Bell Arena, 78-73.
“We were making plays down the stretch, executing offense to get stops on defense, and that’s what it comes to down the stretch of the game,” Kevin Knox said. “They were making runs, but we responded pretty well for freshmen.”
After UK led by as many as 13 late in the first half, Davidson cut it to 10 at the break and caught fire out of the locker room. Bob McKillop’s Wildcats finally tied it with 9:05 left in the game and even had two looks at 3s that would have given them leads. But after the second missed with 2:59 to go, Coach Cal’s Cats clamped down.
“It was a good one for this young team,” Calipari said. “First time they’ve been in the NCAA Tournament, not knowing what to expect. If you come out to play the way we did in the second half, our season will be over. The way they played in the second half, I thought defensively, to play a team that’s as efficient and an execution team like Davidson, this young team did pretty good.”
For more than two minutes, UK held Davidson without a basket and reeled off nine straight points to reclaim a double-digit lead. Davidson would make three 3s and five free throws to make it at least a little interesting in the final minute, but UK had done enough to survive a stiff test.
The game went pretty much according to script, with UK electing to attack the basket as Davidson hunted looks from beyond the arc. By scoring 36 points in the paint and making 26 of 32 from the free-throw line, UK had little time for 3-pointers and only tried six. The Cats didn’t make one, ending a 1,047-game 3-point streak that spanned nearly 30 years, longest in the nation.
Davidson, meanwhile, put up 33 3-pointers and made 11. The Wildcats did get hot for short periods, but UK was able to use its length to limit opportunities and survive intentionally long possessions.
Gilgeous-Alexander overcame his fatigue to flirt with a triple-double and post 19 points, a career-high eight rebounds, seven assists and a career-high five steals, but not without a slow start. Through more than 28 minutes, Gilgeous-Alexander had just two points on 1-of-8 shooting, but he closed with a flurry.
For Knox, scoring happened to be what his team needed of him. Knox scored 25 points to reach double figures for the 12th straight game.
NOTABLES:
• Kentucky is 47-10 in tournament openers and has won 24 of its last 25 first-round tournament games. UK has won eight NCAA Tournamentopeners in a row, all under Calipari
• Not only did UK’s consecutive 3-point streak come to an end, it was the first win in school history without a made 3-pointer
• Kentucky limited Davidson to 39.3 percent from the field. UK is now 168-14 under Calipari when keeping the opponent under 40 percentfrom the field
• Kentucky shot 51.0 percent from the field. UK is 13-1 this season when the Wildcats make at least half their shots
• UK had 10 turnovers. UK is 14-0 this season when committing 11 or fewer miscues
• Kentucky led by as many as 13 points. The Wildcats are 232-5 under Calipari when leading by at least 10 points during a game
• Knox had his team-high 10th 20-plus point effort
• Gilgeous-Alexander set a Cal-era record for steals (five) in an NCAA Tournament game
• Hamidou Diallo blocked a career-high three shots
Historic 3-Pointer Streak Ends in Win over Davidson
Kentucky entered the 2018 NCAA Tournament having made a least one 3-pointer in a nation-leading 1,047 straight games. With an 0-for-6 performance from behind the arc in a 78-73 opening-round win over Davidson, the historic streak no longer lives.
The Wildcats had hit at least one 3-pointer for nearly 30 consecutive years dating back to Nov. 28, 1988, vs. California. Previously, UK’s last game without a 3 came against Seton Hall on Nov. 26, 1988. UK was 807-240 during the streak.
Since the inception of the 3-pointer begining in the 1986-87 season, UK’s win over Davidson marked the first time in program history the team won a game without making at least one 3-pointer.
Kentucky and UNLV went back and forth all season long last year for the claim of having the longest active streak of consecutive games with a made 3-pointer. Fittingly, both schools reached a historic milestone — 1,000 straight games — within a few hours of each other.
UK just beat out the Runnin’ Rebels by mere hours, becoming the first school ever to hit a 3-pointer in 1,000 straight games with a trey at Alabama on Feb. 11, 2017. Malik Monk, UK’s leader in 3-point field goals last season, got the Wildcats to 1,000 straight games with a 3-pointer from the right wing with 15:26 to go in the first half. UNLV would match it later in the day.
Kentucky passed UNLV for the nation’s longest active streak of consecutive games with a made 3-pointer in its final game of 2015-16. UNLV is the nation’s new leader and has hit one in 1,040 straight, through games on March 15.
