Wildcats Excited for Saturday's 'Big Stage'
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Kentucky versus UCLA. Two of the most storied programs in the sport. One has won the most games in college basketball history. The other has won the most championships.
On Saturday, they meet for the 13th time ever, third time in as many years and first time ever at Rupp Arena. Anyone excited?
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| UCLA at Kentucky | ||
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Sat., Dec. 3 – 12:30 p.m. ET |
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| Coverage | ||
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TV: CBS |
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| UK | 2016-17 Team Stats | UCLA |
| 7-0 | Record | 8-0 |
| 0-0 | Conference Record | 0-0 |
| 95.6 | PPG | 97.0 |
| 65.0 | Opp PPG | 72.9 |
| .496 | FG% | .553 |
| .376 | Opp FG% | .395 |
| 44.3 | RPG | 41.5 |
| .323 | 3PT FG% | .456 |
| .246 | Opp 3PT FG% | .360 |
| .711 | FT% | .748 |
| 21.3 | APG | 24.8 |
| 7.9 | SPG | 6.0 |
| 7.6 | BPG | 6.6 |
“I enjoy the preparation of these games to try and make sure I’m putting my team in the best position to win,” UK head coach John Calipari said. “But what I’m gonna tell them: You don’t know if you’re going to win or lose until you win or lose. You might as well worry about preparation and being the best version of yourself, having a good game plan and a little bit of a backup, and then have a great night’s sleep and let’s go play the game and see what happens.”
When No. 1/1 Kentucky (7-0) and No. 11/9 UCLA (8-0) get together Saturday at 12:30 p.m. ET, it’ll pit two of the fastest and most efficient offenses in the country against each other, and it will once again put both programs on the biggest stage in the game.
Calipari often likes to tell his team that they are every team’s Super Bowl. When that team strolls into Rupp Arena, they’re as charged up as they’ll be all year. But UK appears to be pretty fired up as well, asking fans to come wearing either blue or white attire based on their seating location.
The players, well, this is part of the reason they came to Kentucky.
“Yeah, every big stage I like,” said freshman guard Malik Monk, who knocked down seven 3-pointers en route to a career-high 26 points during Kentucky’s win over then-No. 13 Michigan State at Madison Square Garden earlier this season. “I think if you come to Kentucky you’re going to have to like the big stage. Every game is going to be just like this. You’re going to have to come out here ready to play.”
Ever since Kentucky’s 46-point demolition of Arizona State, Calipari and a few of the returners, including sophomore leader Isaiah Briscoe, has had a simple message for the team: Remember last year.
Last year, much like this year, UK faced UCLA with the No. 1 ranking preceding its name and a 7-0 record following it. In that game, Kentucky lost 87-77 inside a raucous Pauley Pavilion.
“Them going into UCLA and just getting beat like that,” Monk said. “Cal brings it up every practice now since we’ve (gotten ready) to play UCLA. We’re going to have to come out here and focus on what we have to do.”
Monk said Calipari has repeatedly told the team to “remember the feeling” they had after last year’s defeat, their first of the season. Because Kentucky’s freshmen haven’t come close to having felt that this season, Briscoe has let them know it “doesn’t feel good to lose like that on national TV.”
As Calipari pointed out Friday, the Bruins return many players from that roster, but also have two key additions in freshmen Lonzo Ball and TJ Leaf.
Ball, a 6-foot-6 point guard who was the No. 3 overall prospect in the country coming out of high school, according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, is leading the country with 9.6 assists per game to go with his 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 47.4 percent 3-point shooting. In the Bruins’ last game, a 98-56 win over UC Riverside, he set the single-game program record with 13 assists.
“I played with him at the McDonald’s game,” Monk said. “He’s a great player.”
“He’s really good,” Calipari said of Ball. “Like, he’s big. He sees the court. He’s OK to take no shots. He doesn’t care. Or if he needs to score 25 he will. … He’s smart. You can see on the court, he’s like our guys – he’s got a nimble mind. He’ll see something happening before it happens. He’s good.”
Leaf, at 6-10, is second on the team in scoring (17.3 points per game) and in rebounding (9.0 rpg). He’s averaging more than 28 minutes per contest and has connected on half of his 16 3-point tries.
Leaf and Ball aren’t the only ones to have success from deep though. The Bruins have averaged 11 made 3-point field goals per game this season while shooting 45.6 percent from beyond the arc.
Both teams enter Saturday’s game averaging more than 95 points per contest, but while UCLA has the second-best 3-point shooting percentage in the country – not to mention the third-best 2-point shooting percentage – Kentucky has done its best work in transition inside the arc, where it has hit 57.6 percent of its shots.
“This is a shot maker’s game,” Calipari said. “If either team is not making shots, you’ll be in trouble. I doubt both teams won’t be making shots so you better hope it’s not you. Both are good shooting teams and have players that are able to go on runs. We score in different ways.”
Coach Cal was hesitant to compare Saturday’s game to an NCAA Tournament-type of game because it’s being played in venerable Rupp Arena, where the Wildcats have won 42 straight games and 124 of 128 games under Calipari.
However, Saturday’s game will present the Wildcats with their stiffest test to date in what figures to be an electric atmosphere. Calipari said there’s a chance his team takes the floor and the moment’s too big and his players lose their minds. Regardless, he’s happy to have the team he does.
“Win or lose I’m glad I’ve got the team I have, and this is all building toward March,” Coach Cal said. “This is a great game in early December for us. Hard. They could bash us. They beat us last year and they beat us bigger than the score. Score said nine or 10, whatever. It was 20. It was not even a game. We never had a chance. … And they got the same team back with Ball. We lost everybody and have a brand new team so it’ll be interesting.”
Fox’s Historic Triple-Double Highlights Record-Setting Win vs. Arizona State
On a night of record-setting accomplishments and a collective offensive outburst from the Wildcats in a 115-69 win over Arizona State in the Bahamas, one achievement stood out above the rest: De’Aaron Fox’s triple-double.
With 14 points, a career-high 11 rebounds and 10 assists in 31 minutes of play, Fox etched his named into the Kentucky record books with just the second triple-double in school history. Chris Mills notched the first and only other triple-double for UK on Dec. 27, 1988.
Fox collected his 10th assist with 4:44 left to play to get the triple-double on a Malik Monk 3-pointer. Coincidentally, the 3-pointer and record-setting assist put the Wildcats over the 100-point mark for the third consecutive game, the first time that’s happened since December of 1977. Those were just a few of numerous eye-popping stats from UK’s dominating performance on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
Six Wildcats scored in double figures for the second game in a row, led by Monk with 23 points and Isaiah Briscoe with 20. Monk eclipsed the 20-point mark for a third straight game and the fourth time in the last five. Bam Adebayo just missed out on a double- double with 12 points and nine rebounds.
Kentucky went on an 18-5 run early in the first half to take a 26-10 lead and then never looked back. The Wildcats scored 59 points by halftime, the most in the first half of the John Calipari era, and then followed it up with another 58 in the second half. The total of 115 points was the most of the Calipari era and the most since Dec. 30, 2002, when UK scored 115 in a win over East Tennessee State.
With the 46-point drubbing, this season’s Wildcats joined the 1947-48 Kentucky team as the only squads in school history to win their first seven games by at least 21 points. No team in program history has ever done it eight straight times to begin the year.
UK dished out more assists (33) than it ever has in the Calipari era, took more shots (84) than it ever has under Calipari thanks to the blazing pace of play, and tied the Calipari-era mark for the most rebounds in a game. The 33 assists were two off the school record.
Other notables:
• The 33 assists were the most since setting the school record with 35 on March 14, 1996, vs. San Jose State
• Fox was named the most valuable player after recording the triple-double
• The last time Kentucky won four consecutive games by at least 31 points was February 1954
• UK shot 52.4 percent from the floor, the fifth time this season the Wildcats have made at least half their attempts
• Kentucky improved to 69-6 under Calipari as the Associated Press top-ranked team
• Monk continued his streak of at least two 3-pointers in a game to six games
• Adebayo tied his career high with three blocks
• Briscoe tied his career high with seven assists. He reached 20 points for the third time in five games and made multiple 3-pointers for the first time in his career
• Wenyen Gabriel posted 10 points and seven rebounds, the fifth straight outing he’s grabbed six or more rebounds
• Mychal Mulder knocked down two more 3-pointers, the fourth consecutive game he’s hit multipe treys
• Brad Calipari hit his first career 3-pointer
• Derek Willis chipped in with 11 points and six rebounds
Battle of the Bluebloods
It doesn’t get much better than Kentucky-UCLA. One school (Kentucky) leads the nation in all-time wins (2,212). The other leads the NCAA in national titles (11). They’ve each been to the Final Four 17 times and carry as much tradition and history as any other schools in the country.
Remarkably, given all their history, the schools have met just 12 times before with UK leading the series 7-5. UCLA got the better of the Wildcats in last season’s matchup in Los Angeles.
This season’s meeting — one of two top-15, undefeated teams — will be the first one ever in Rupp Arena. UCLA has played in Lexington just twice, the last time in February 1961 before Rupp Arena was built.
In a matchup rich with hype, attention and talented players, a couple of numbers stand out heading into what should be a classic showdown:
• UK and UCLA are the only two teams in the country to rank in the top 10 in both offensive efficiency and average possession length. Expect a fast-paced game
• Kentucky has topped the 100-point mark in three straight games. UCLA topped 100 in three of its first four games
• While the Wildcats are averaging 95.6 points per game, UCLA actually averages more at 97.0
• UK has six players averaging 7.9 points or more. UCLA has six players averaging double figures
• Both teams share the ball. UCLA is averaging 24.8 assists per game, the best mark in the country. UK is averaging 21.3, the thirdbest mark
• Some national pundits believe UK’s permiter matchup of De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Isaiah Briscoe vs. UCLA’s perimeter punch of Isaac Hamilton, Bryce Alford, Lonzo Ball and Aaron Holiday could be the best guard matchup of the season
• UCLA is second in the country in 3-point field goal percentage at .456 and sixth in three-point field goals per game at 11.0. UK counters with the nation’s sixth-best 3-point field-goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to make just 24.6 percent of their shots from behind the arc
