Calipari Asking Cats to Answer the Bell vs. Troy
John Calipari’s demands are simple.
He isn’t asking his team to master switching defenses or complicated offensive sets. Coach Cal knows that wouldn’t be fair to such a young group.
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| Kentucky vs. Troy | ||
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Mon., Nov. 20 – 8 p.m. ET |
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| Coverage | ||
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TV: SEC Network |
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| UK | 2017-18 Team Stats | TU |
| 3-1 | Record | 2-2 |
| 0-0 | Conference Record | 0-0 |
| 71.2 | PPG | 83.5 |
| 64.5 | Opp PPG | 70.8 |
| .460 | FG% | .448 |
| .380 | Opp FG% | .383 |
| 38.2 | RPG | 43.2 |
| .377 | 3PT FG% | .342 |
| .292 | Opp 3PT FG% | .333 |
| .620 | FT% | .681 |
| 15.8 | APG | 14.8 |
| 6.8 | SPG | 6.8 |
| 7.5 | BPG | 4.5 |
As No. 7 Kentucky (3-1) prepares for its fifth game in 11 days to start the season, hosting Troy (2-2) at 8 p.m. on Monday, Calipari is really only asking for one beyond pure effort: unselfishness.
When those expectations aren’t met, Calipari is going to speak up, just as he did after a UK win over East Tennessee State on Friday night.
“At the end of the game I kind of got frustrated,” Calipari said. “I probably shouldn’t have, but I did, and normally after a game like that I don’t want to say much but I came in and guys were taking their shoes off and talking and so I said some stuff. Not mean. Kept it real.”
The Wildcats might have overcome an early 10-point deficit for a 78-61 win, but Calipari had seen unacceptable lapses. Though he admitted he expected that mere days after an emotional game against Kansas, that wasn’t going to change his reaction.
“They’re not mature enough to figure all this out and that every game matters and you’re being evaluated personally and us as a team every game we play,” Calipari said. “Guys went out and, ‘I’m just going to go get mine,’ and when you do that, you just don’t look like a very good basketball player. You look like, ‘Does he really get it?’ We had a lot of that kind of play today.”
That kind of play bookended the game, both causing UK to fall behind early and leaving Coach Cal with a bad taste in the final minutes.
“Even in the end, I mean, how about just make easy plays?” Calipari said. “There’s a lob, but I got to do a wraparound. ‘Why would you do that?’ ‘Because I had to show everybody this wraparound.They don’t know that I have this in my repertoire.’ ‘Really? You could have thrown a lob and the guy dunked it right there, but you threw it away and then you went and told the guy, you should have caught it. Really?’ “
Calipari’s points were well taken, even by Quade Green, who had the best game of any Wildcat with 21 points.
“That’s how he coaches,” Green said. “He loves the game. He’s going to coach aggressive. He wants us to do good for the team, so that’s just how he coaches. We just gotta take it.”
Now the Cats will look to respond positively, and they won’t have to wait long to do so. The second game of the Adolph Rupp Classic will bring Troy to Lexington, a team led by 6-foot-6 junior Jordon Varnado. Varnado, averaging 19.5 points and 8.3 rebounds, is the brother of former Mississippi State star Jarvis Varnado, the NCAA’s all-time leading shot blocker.
Troy, an NCAA Tournament team a season ago, will be just as fired up to play as ETSU was on Friday night. Based on what Calipari knows about his team, he feels good about what he will see Monday night.
“Here’s what I love about this team,” Calipari said. “They’re trying to do what I’m asking them to do. I don’t want to get frustrated. I did today because I thought guys got selfish. And I don’t know if it was selfish and they – or they just don’t know. But I know this: A bunch of great guys that do want to please me. You know how lucky I am to be coaching guys like that? And I gotta keep reminding myself of that because I want them to be better every night out.”
Wildcats Overcome First-Half Deficit for 78-61 Win over ETSU
Quade Green scored a career-high 21 points, Kevin Knox had 17 points with 10 rebounds, and No. 7 Kentucky overcame an early deficit to run away from East Tennessee State 78-61 on Friday night.
Bouncing back from Tuesday’s 65-61 Champions Classic loss to No. 4/3 Kansas required the Wildcats (3-1) overcoming an 18-8 first-half hole. Green took charge to score 10 of their next 12 points to cut the lead to 23-20, and Hamidou Diallo and Wenyen Gabriel combined for 11 of the next 16 as Kentucky outscored ETSU 28-12 over the final 10:05 for a 36-30 halftime lead.
The Wildcats kept rolling behind defense that held the Buccaneers (1-2) to 32.4 percent shooting, including just 10 of 36 (27.8 percent) in the second half. They also owned the paint (38-22), fast-break points (14-2) and registered eight blocks to win their first game of the Adolph Rupp Classic.
Green made 9 of 13 from the field to top his previous high of 15 points on Sunday against Vermont. Peter Jurkin had 17 points and David Burrell 11 for ETSU.
The learning curve continued as another veteran squad knocked the young Wildcats on their heels before they found their resolve and shooting touch. This hole occurred early enough for them to regroup from 4-of-14 shooting, and they didn’t look back in making 56.9 percent from the field. While Green provided the offensive spark, Sacha Killeya-Jones (eight rebounds) and Knox handled the boards. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander came off the bench to post 10 points and a career-high six assists.
• ETSU led by as many as 10. Kentucky has trailed by double digits in three of four games this season
• Kentucky made a season-high nine 3-pointers
• UK’s 38 points in the paint were a season high led by Knox’s career-high four treys
• Kentucky’s 19 bench points were a season high
• UK made 3 of 15 free throws. The previous fewest free throws UK made in a game during the John Calipari era was four vs. UConn on April 2, 2011, in the Final Four
• Kentucky had three players grab more than seven rebounds for the second game in a row
• UK has had at least three players with three or more assists in all three games this season
• Kentucky scored a season-high 78 points
• UK committed a season-high 22 turnovers. UK had a season-high 18 turnovers in the previous game against Kanas
• Kentucky grabbed a season-high 40 rebounds
• Knox is the only Wildcat to score in double figures in all four games this season. He also collected his first career double-double
Calipari Inks Three for 2018 During Fall Signing Period
In what’s become somewhat of a fall tradition in college basketball and a celebration of riches in the Big Blue Nation, the Kentucky men’s basketball team has begun building one of the strongest recruiting classes in the country, signing three of the nation’s top players during the early fall signing period. Highly rated prospects Tyler Herro, Keldon Johnson and Immanuel Quickley have all inked national letters of intent with UK.
All three players are consensus four- or five-star prospects and all are ranked in the top 50 by the major national recruiting services. Although it’s still early in the recruiting process with a number of dominoes still to fall, national analysts once again believe UK’s class will be one of the top hauls for 2018.
In every season in the John Calipari era, the Wildcats have signed a top-three recruiting class according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, which tallies major recruiting rankings and plugs them into a formula to calculate a consensus ranking.
• Tyler Herro – At 6-foot-5, Herro has length, and now listed at 195 pounds by 247Sports, he’s quickly adding muscle to his frame. The shooting guard out of Whitnall High School in Greenfield, Wisconsin, averaged 23.9 points and shot 39 percent from 3-point range in his junior season in high school. The top-ranked player out of Wisconsin, Herro is considered one of the top shooting guards in the 2018 class. A consensus four-star recruit, Herro is ranked as high as No. 27 in ESPN’s rankings, No. 38 by Rivals and No. 40 by 247Sports. Herro was one of 54 players selected for the USA Basketball Junior National Team minicamp in October. He also averaged 14.8 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game on the Nike circuit this past summer, shooting 36 percent from 3-point range
• Keldon Johnson – A 6-6 shooting guard out of Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Virginia, Johnson is a consensus five-star player and one of the best in the class of 2018. A native of South Hill, Virginia, he previously played for Huntington Prep in Huntington, West Virginia, before transferring to Oak Hill for the 2017-18 season. Johnson is ranked as high as the No. 7 overall prospect by ESPN, including third at his position. 247Sports ranks him as the nation’s No. 11 overall player, while Rivals has him at No. 18. He led his Boo Williams (Va.) AAU team to the semifinals of the Peach Jam after averaging 20.7 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.1 assists during the Nike regular season. Johnson took home MVP honors at the NBPA Top 100 Camp in June. Like Herro, Johnson was one of 54 players selected for the USA Basketball Junior National Team minicamp in October
• Immanuel Quickley – A 6-4 guard out of the John Carroll School in Bel Air, Maryland, Quickley is a consensus five-star prospect. Considered a consensus top-three player at his position, he’s ranked as high as No. 10 by Rivals, No. 12 by ESPN and No. 13 by 247Sports. In his junior season at John Carroll, Quickley averaged 23.7 points and 7.2 assists. He scored 30 or more in five games, 20 or more in 14 games and finished with eight double-doubles. He also averaged 25.7 points, 4.7 rebounds and shot 42.1 percent from 3-point range in the Adidas Summer Championships in July. Quickley was a member of the 2017 USA Men’s U19 World Cup Team that competed in Cairo. Playing under Calipari, Quickley averaged 6.7 points and 2.4 assists in 18.3 minutes per game. He was named the Baltimore Sun Metro Player of the Year in 2016
