Cats in for a ‘War’ to Open SEC Tournament
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – It’s a long season, so you can’t blame John Calipari if things begin to run together.
Take Kentucky’s game against Georgia just a few short weeks ago, a game that he remembered being a little more comfortable than it really was.
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| Kentucky vs. Georgia | ||
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Sat., March 10 – 1 p.m. ET |
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| Coverage | ||
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TV: SEC Network |
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| UK | 2016-17 Team Stats | UGA |
| 26-5 | Record | 19-13 |
| 16-2 | Conference Record | 9-9 |
| 86.8 | PPG | 72.5 |
| 72.1 | Opp PPG | 70.5 |
| .478 | FG% | .444 |
| .426 | Opp FG% | .412 |
| 40.5 | RPG | 36.9 |
| .352 | 3PT FG% | .328 |
| .312 | Opp 3PT FG% | .332 |
| .700 | FT% | .759 |
| 16.1 | APG | 13.1 |
| 6.0 | SPG | 5.5 |
| 5.4 | BPG | 3.9 |
It took everything the Wildcats had to escape that road game with a win.
“When I watched the tape, I didn’t realize that it was like that,” Coach Cal said. “Because you have a vision that we won by eight. What? We were down with 50 seconds to go. I mean, so, I know how good they are. I know how well coached they are.”
Calipari cued up the tape for that game immediately once he learned his Wildcats (26-5) would be facing the Bulldogs (19-13) in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament on Friday at 1 p.m. ET. The matchup will be the third between the two teams, with UK sweeping the first two in spite of trailing in the final minute both times.
“The previous matchups are totally different from now,” said star senior guard JJ Frazier, who scored 36 and 23 points in the games against UK. “We got to go back and watch them and prepare, you know, because we have a different team since Yante (Maten) been out a couple games.”
Maten’s absence is due to a knee injury that came in the last Georgia-UK matchup when Isaiah Briscoe fell on the junior forward in the game’s opening minutes. He would miss the last 38 minutes against the Cats and the next four games before returning to come off the bench and score 12 points as the Bulldogs bested Tennessee on Thursday to advance, 59-57.
“Maten is back playing,” Calipari said. “You know what he—he’s one of the better four/threes in our league and a 20-point scorer, so it’ll be a war. They all are at this time.”
Georgia will be playing with its life on the line on Friday afternoon, its NCAA Tournament résumé in dire need of a quality win. The Bulldogs have a respectable RPI of 53, but are just 1-8 against the top 50 with the lone win coming over No. 45 Vanderbilt.
“We have to win the next game and, you know, we got to come out and play strong, play to our advantages, and play good basketball throughout the whole game,” Maten said, “because we came out strong the past couple of times (against UK), and we didn’t finish the best, but we’re going to come out.”
Now, the Cats will be facing a hungry Georgia team with limited time to prepare. In other words, they had better be ready for anything.
“Now today Georgia played every possession zone,” Calipari said. “They played every possession zone. They played two possessions against us last time zone. So now do they come out and play zone? I don’t know. I don’t know. And that’s why walking in there you don’t know what a coach is going to try to do.”
After traveling to Nashville on Wednesday evening, UK spent the morning on Thursday practicing before a brief walkthrough once the Cats knew their opponent. And not knowing which team would win between Georgia and Tennessee, Coach Cal changed things up in film review.
“We didn’t have much film because we didn’t know who we were playing, so the only film that I put up was some film of us offensively of what I liked and this is what we’re trying to get to,” Calipari said. “I wanted them to see us at our best, so there were some clips in some games that we really got some great movement and yet attacked the basket and got to the rim. I just wanted them to see that.”
Coaching a team that’s won eight straight games, Calipari has plenty of positive film to pull from. That’s what has helped put him in a “great frame of mind” entering the postseason.
“Just that you see a cohesive team that’s patient yet attacking, that’s aggressive, that’s not on their heels waiting,” Calipari said. “They’re trying to make things happen. That’s who we should be. And the only way you get that is your team plays with high energy.”
UK has one more weekend to work on that before the real business begins.
“This tournament is our way of getting ready,” Calipari said. “It’s our way of getting ready and every one of these teams is capable of beating us. We know that. This is about, how are we getting in a frame of mind of how you’re going to have to play in another week.”
Cats Post Third Straight Comeback Victory for Outright SEC Title
The Kentucky Wildcats vowed to come out playing “desperate” and not put themselves in an early hole like they had in previous games, but there they were again — this time at Texas A&M — facing a big deficit with a mountain to climb.
Yet again, they did the unthinkable and came back to win.
No. 9/9 UK (26-5, 16-2 Southeastern Conference) rallied from 15 points down in the first half to defeat Texas A&M (16-14, 8-10 SEC) on Saturday, 71-63, to claim the outright regular-season SEC championship. The Wildcats had already clinched at least a share of the SEC title — their 48th — earlier in the week.
This one, like the previous two, came in dramatic comeback fashion. A game after coming from 19 points down to defeat Vanderbilt, and two games removed from rallying from 12 points behind to beat Florida, UK clawed back from an early 19-5 hole to win its third straight game when trailing by double digits. The last time Kentucky rallied to win three straight games when trailing by double digits was the 1998 national championship team. That team, appropriately named the “Comeback Cats,” won their final three games of the NCAA Tournament in comeback fashion.
The 15-point come-from-behind win was also the largest road comeback of the John Calipari era — not to mention it was UK’s eighth straight victory in a row overall, the longest since the historic 2014-15 team won 38 consecutive games.
It was a fitting end to another banner regular season for UK, which enters the 2017 SEC Tournament playing some of its best basketball of the season.
UK answered the early 15-point hole with a 28-9 run to end the half. Derek Willis hit a 3-pointer to give the Wildcats a 30-27 lead they would never look back from, part of nine straight points from the senior class.
Freshman De’Aaron Fox opened the second half with eight straight points to start to pull away from the Aggies. Texas A&M cut UK’s lead to four, 55-51, with 6:10 on the clock, but the game would get no closer than that the rest of the way.
Fox finished with a team-high 19 points with a career-high-tying two 3-pointers in front of family and friends, who made the short drive to College Station, Texas, from Fox’s hometown in Houston. Bam Adebayo added 13 points and eight rebounds, and Isaiah Briscoe stuffed the stat sheet with seven points, a game-high eight assists and seven rebounds.
Additional notes:
• It was the first time in four games in College Station between the two teams that the game did not go into overtime
• UK’s six turnovers tied its season low
• Kentucky held Texas A&M to 63 points. UK is 16-0 this season when limiting the opponent to 72 or fewer points
• UK shot 44.1 percent from the field. UK is 25-1 this season when shooting at least 42 percent
• Malik Monk’s double-figure scoring streak ended at 30 games. It was the first game this season he failed to score 10 or more points
• Dominique Hawkins scored eight points, all in the first half, to keep the Wildcats afloat during the first half. He also added two steals
• Willis blocked three shots for the second straight game in addition to 11 points
SEC Champs!
Kentucky clinched at least a share of the regular-season Southeastern Conference championship with a victory over Vanderbilt on Tuesday in an epic 19-point comeback. The Wildcats also locked up the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament in Nashville, Tennessee, with the win. The Wildcats did one better on March 5, claiming the title outright with a 15-point comeback victory at Texas A&M.
It marked UK’s league-leading 48th SEC championship, 38 more than anyone else in the league. The rest of the league has a combined 50 titles. It was also the fifth time UK has won at least a share of the SEC championship in head coach John Calipari’s eight seasons at Kentucky.
For Calipari, it was his 15th league crown, spanning three different conferences.
