It reads like a recipe for road defeat in the Southeastern Conference.Not only did Kentucky manage just three offensive rebounds – nearly 12 below its season average – the Wildcats also went more than 10 minutes in the second half without a made field goal.Unbeaten season over, right? Wrong.The way UK was defending at South Carolina on Saturday, it was going to take more than that for the Cats to suffer their first loss.”It was pretty good,” John Calipari said of his team’s second-half defense.UK, only furthering its record-setting defensive pace, held South Carolina to 4-of-23 shooting after halftime. The Gamecocks didn’t hit a shot until the 15:12 mark of the second half, meaning they had a field-goal drought of more than nine minutes going back to the first half. Before the game ended with a 58-43 win for No. 1 UK (19-0, 6-0 Southeastern Conference), South Carolina (10-8, 1-5 SEC) would also have droughts of 6:16 and 5:55.Incredible as it may be, it makes sense then that the Cats actually outscored South Carolina by a point during their more than 10 minutes without a field goal thanks to 11 made free throws in 12 attempts.”Well, they were playing rough ball, you know fouling a lot, so we were just trying to get into the offense,” Tyler Ulis said. “It was kinda hard to get into a flow with all the fouls called, but I feel like we executed well, we just were at the line more than we usually are.”Thanks to all those fouls and the lack of second chances, UK attempted only four field goals during the drought, suggesting the Cats weren’t actually all that inefficient on offense anyway.”We end up shooting 46 percent and the greatest thing for me is we had eight turnovers,” Calipari said. “That’s probably a couple less than I’d like, but it just shows you that we’re a team that can play. You can play us physical and we can still do the stuff we’re trying to do.”Devin Booker certainly wasn’t affected negatively by the physical play.The freshman guard continued his shooting surge of the last month and a half with two made 3s, but matched it with a burgeoning off-the-bounce game. He scored a game-high 18 points and needed only 26 minutes and nine shots to do it.”I think me going on this little streak opened it up, ’cause now teams know they have to play closer to me,” Booker said. “So I use a head-fake and one or two dribbles and get other people involved.”Booker has a ways to go to match Ulis, his classmate and close friend, in involving teammates. Ulis scored only six points, but had six assists and no turnovers.With the two freshmen playing well in Colonial Life Arena, a place where UK famously lost in both 2010 and 2014, they’re showing no signs of trouble dealing with the rigors of facing big road crowds in SEC play.”I feel like we’re both confident in our games and we just come here and take it like another game,” Ulis said. “We love the crowd’s reaction to us, the boos and stuff like that, so it’s really not a lot of pressure on us. We just come out to play.”As good as Ulis and Booker were offensively, the story remains Kentucky’s defense, as has been the case for really the entire season. UK had nine blocks as a team – four by Marcus Lee – and eight steals, holding the Gamecocks to a paltry 0.741 points per possession. In doing so, the Cats lowered their season average to 0.772 points per possession allowed, best in the nation and in the 14 seasons kenpom.com has tracked the statistic.”It just goes with our team concept — shutting teams out — and that’s what we try to do,” Booker said.UK surely won’t ever pitch a shutout, though there are times it doesn’t seem impossible, but that won’t stop the Cats from trying. That’s why Coach Cal had to issue a mea culpa to his team for a late-game coaching decision.Around the 13-minute mark of the first half, Coach Cal opted to use a 2-3 zone for the first time during meaningful minutes this season. UK played well in it, but Aaron Harrison – who scored 13 points – committed a foul with seconds left on the shot clock. A little more than six minutes later, heeding counsel from an unnamed assistant, he went back to it with South Carolina in the midst of one of its long field-goal droughts. Justin McKie promptly made the Cats pay from outside.”They made a 3 and I apologized to the team,” Calipari said.The apology came because Kentucky has spent months establishing its identity as a team that suffocates opponents with a man-to-man defense, not changing based on a scouting report or an opponent’s personnel.”That’s not what we do here,” Calipari said.Calipari already knew that, but Saturday served to reinforce it.