Terrence Jones had 52 points and 16 rebounds in the Blue-White Scrimmage. (Britney McIntosh, UK Athletics)
With an entire SportsCenter episode’s worth of highlights, every reason for the Kentucky Wildcats’ high preseason ranking was on full display at Wednesday’s Blue-White Scrimmage.With an athletic and long combination of experienced and young talent, the Cats electrified fans with an arsenal of dunks, drives and alley oops as the Blue team defeated the White 126-104 behind a scrimmage-record 52 points from Terrence Jones.As fun as the Cats were to watch, John Calipari made sure to point out just how far his team has to go to reach the heights so many are expecting of them.”Everybody’s excited because you saw a lot of high flying dunking, blocking, tipping,” Calipari said. “That doesn’t win, though. We have to play basketball. We have to be a great team. We’re not right now.”Jones converted on 24 of his 31 field goal attempts on the night, while six other Cats had at least 19 points. The Blue team shot 55.9-percent from the field and repeatedly had easy looks at the basket. Calipari’s teams have come to be known for defense, but this edition of the Wildcats just isn’t quite there yet.”I bet you we’d be really good against the Washington Generals,” Calipari said. “We’ve got to be a great defensive team, and we’re not.” In particular, the White team, which featured three of UK’s four freshmen, had trouble containing the opponent. Jones wasn’t the only one to take advantage of their inexperience either, as Doron Lamb scored 31 points and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist added 21. The teams were split just as they have been throughout UK’s two weeks of full practice since Big Blue Madness, which has made it tough at times for the trio of newcomers.”You wonder why one team played better,” Calipari said. “Well, they had Terrence as a veteran, Doron as a veteran and Eloy (Vargas) as a veteran. The other guys had Marquis (Teague) as a freshman, Anthony (Davis) as a freshman, Kyle (Wiltjer) as a freshman.”Teague, the latest in a long line of highly touted Calipari point guards, was dynamic at times, but struggled in decision-making at times. Calipari said Teague’s focus should be on playing with proper pace, which will be crucial as he tries to spread the wealth among his numerous talented teammates. “You have to make easy plays when you’re in that point guard position because you’re going to have the ball a lot,” Calipari said. “He’s got a team full of guys that he’s going to have to keep balanced as far as scoring.”Come the regular season, though, there won’t be too many challenges Teague runs across that figure to be much tougher than facing off against the experienced talent of Jones, Lamb and company.”It’s tough,” Wiltjer said. “We do that every day in practice but it gets us that much better when we’re playing against guys that have been there and done that.”Foremost among those players who has “been there and done that” is Jones, who backed up all the preseason talk of him taking his game to the next level. Along with his 52 points, he added 16 rebounds and six assists, getting it done in every way imaginable. He scored on post-ups, drives, offensive rebounds, alley oops and outside shots, demonstrating a newfound attitude he has taken on with Calipari’s encouragement since opting to bypass the 2011 NBA Draft and return for his sophomore season.”I told him when he came back, ‘if you’re coming back, you’re going to be the best player, top three in the country, or don’t come back,’ ” Calipari said.With his new physique and approach, Jones thrived in basically every set Calipari experimented with during the scrimmage. He attacked the basket in the traditional dribble-drive, found space in the pick-and-roll and made plays in the full-court press. Jones figures to be among the best players in both the SEC and nation no matter how the team ends up playing, but Calipari hopes to settle on a style more quickly than he did in 2010-11.”We have to figure out what’s the best way for us to play,” Calipari said. “Last year it took us (until) February before we could figure out how we had to play. Let’s hope it doesn’t take us that long this year.”