Monk Wakes up Early, gets on Track against Alabama

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Malik Monk had to do something different.

The Kentucky guard with a penchant for 3-pointers and jaw-dropping games was in a rut like he’d never been in before during his record-breaking freshman season.

After scoring in double digits in each of Kentucky’s first 30 games, Monk had scored just eight total points over UK’s past two games. The common theme in those two games was that UK hadn’t had a shootaround in either. The game at Texas A&M started at 11 a.m. local time and UK’s Southeastern Conference Tournament opener against Georgia on Friday was at noon.

Monk, admittedly, is a player who likes to break a sweat before games to get his blood flowing and energy ramped up. It’s not mandatory – he scored 24 points against UCLA on Dec. 3 without a shootaround – but he thought it would help.

So he got up early.

Along with Wenyen Gabriel, Monk got in a university van at 7:15 Saturday morning with associate head coach Kenny Payne and had a private shootaround at Bridgestone Arena for a half hour before their teammates even woke up for breakfast.

“I think that helped a lot,” Monk said.

Monk scored 20 points on 6-of-14 shooting and knocked down a pair of 3-pointers. He also grabbed four rebounds and dished out two assists in UK’s 79-74 win over Alabama.

“I knew I had to get up and execute for the team,” Monk said. “Me having a shootaround, after every shootaround, I think I have a good game. If I get shots before the game, I just have a good game or have a better flow. So I think I’m going to start doing that, and that’s what happened.”

Despite missing a number of shots during pregame warmups (gasp!), Monk was fine for the real thing. He hit each of his first three shots in the game before missing a heat check, pull-up 3-pointer in transition.

Monk said his pregame warmup misses weren’t of any concern because of his early-morning shootaround. He was so comfortable, actually, that he stopped shooting during warmups because so many of his shots were getting deflected from other players’ shots.

The success of Saturday’s early morning shooting has him wanting more for Sunday’s championship game against Arkansas.

“It woke me up a lot more,” Monk said. “I got a little sweat in pre-workout.”

Head coach John Calipari was obviously pleased to see his team’s leading scorer get back on track in that department, but he was equally pleased with the responsibility and maturity Monk and his teammates showed before, during and after the game as the team collectively becomes empowered.

“One, Malik Monk got up early to come to this gym by himself with Wenyen Gabriel and one of the coaches to get extra shots,” Coach Cal said. “He came early. He did it. Second thing that happened is I had he and Isaiah out and I’m going to put them in, but the team on the floor was on a run and they say to me, ‘Let them stay in.’ That’s where this is starting to go.

“The only – other than family, the only people happier for De’Aaron Fox was Malik Monk, like happy as heck at how he played.

“That’s the – the team is starting to come together and understand, you know, numbers don’t matter on a team like this. You just – may be your game, may be another guy’s game. That was good for us to see and how they played.”