Developing Cats Face Stiff Test in College Station
Improvement for Kentucky isn’t going to come without the Wildcats facing challenges.
There will be no shortage of those over the final month of the season.
In the midst of both a learning curve and a process of growth, No. 24/24 UK (17-7, 6-5 Southeastern Conference) will hit the road for the next such challenge this weekend in College Station, Texas. Awaiting the Wildcats on Saturday at 8:15 p.m. ET are the Texas A&M Aggies (16-8, 5-6 SEC), one of the tallest, most physical teams in the country.
“Now that they’re healthy, they’re winning games,” UK head coach John Calipari said on Friday. “They were a top-five team to start the year and now they can go on a run of games and all of a sudden you turn around and they’re back to being a top-10 team.”
A&M is 10th nationally in rebounding margin (plus-7.5 per game) thanks to the sixth-tallest roster in America according to kenpom.com. UK – fourth in height – has dealt with the Aggies once before, winning a 74-73 nail biter by overcoming a four-point deficit in the final minutes. The biggest of the Aggies, 6-foot-10, 264-pound Tyler Davis, scored 21 points, but Hamidou Diallo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, PJ Washington and Kevin Knox all had 15 points or more.
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| Kentucky at Texas A&M | ||
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Sat., Feb. 10 – 8:15 p.m. ET |
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TV: ESPN |
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| UK | 2017-18 Team Stats | TAMU |
| 17-7 | Record | 16-8 |
| 6-5 | Conference Record | 5-6 |
| 76.1 | PPG | 75.5 |
| 69.9 | Opp PPG | 68.0 |
| .466 | FG% | .462 |
| .408 | Opp FG% | .393 |
| 38.8 | RPG | 41.8 |
| .330 | 3PT FG% | .334 |
| .287 | Opp 3PT FG% | .314 |
| .693 | FT% | .684 |
| 13.4 | APG | 16.9 |
| 5.9 | SPG | 5.9 |
| 5.2 | BPG | 6.1 |
“They’re a big, physical team, that’s how they play basketball,” said sophomore forward Wenyen Gabriel. “We have to be ready to combat that, and I feel like we need to keep playing defense how we’ve been playing and hopefully we make some shots this game. We’ve been working on that and putting a lot of emphasis on it during our practices.”
Both coaches will be combing the tape from that game on Jan. 9, but these are two different teams. A month ago, UK was playing without Jarred Vanderbilt and Quade Green, forced to play four players 32 minutes or more and Brad Calipari for three. The Cats now have the benefit of depth, but are in the midst of a two-game losing streak in the unforgiving SEC after Tennessee escaped Rupp Arena with a 61-59 win on Tuesday.
“We’re about to watch film on the last game right now, go over our game plan and talk about what we’re gonna do for this game coming up,” Gabriel said.
No team can better speak for the difficulty of the league than A&M, as that loss to Kentucky was the Aggies’ fifth in a row to start conference play. Injuries, suspensions and momentum contributed to that slow start, but the Aggies – who reached No. 5 in the AP Top 25 at Christmas – are at full strength and playing like the SEC favorites they were in the preseason.
Texas A&M has won three games in a row, starting with home blowouts over Arkansas and South Carolina. Most recently, the Aggies went on the road and did something no team had done all season: beat SEC-leading and No. 8/9 Auburn on its home floor. Behind 23 points by explosive freshman guard TJ Starks, the Aggies built a 15-point second-half lead, lost it in the span of nine minutes and eventually closed out an 81-80 victory.
As ever, regardless of the opponent or venue, Coach Cal is keeping his focus on his own team and its long-term development. Though UK lost the last time out, he saw reason to believe the Cats took a step in the direction they need to go for the sake of their March prospects. Saturday marks an opportunity to take another such step.
Late Rally Lifts Vols Past Cats
Quade Green and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander each scored 15 points, but No. 24/24 Kentucky fell to No. 15/14 Tennessee 61-59 on Tuesday night at Rupp Arena.
Kentucky (17-7, 6-5 Southeastern Conference) led 58-56 with 1:28 left in the game, but Tennessee made a 3-pointer from Lamonte Turner to take a 59-58 lead with 26 seconds remaining. The Wildcats turned the ball over on their next possession, leading to an Admiral Schofield dunk, giving the Vols a 61-58 lead with just four seconds to go.
The Wildcats got the ball to Gilgeous-Alexander in the game’s final seconds, and he was fouled. After making the first free throw, Gilgeous-Alexander intentionally missed the second, but the Cats could not corral the rebound, and time expired.
Kevin Knox had 10 points for Kentucky and Nick Richards added five points and a game-high eight rebounds.
Both teams struggled from the field for most of the first half. Kentucky made just two of its first 14 shots from the field, both 3-pointers by Green, while Tennessee hit seven of its first 23 shots. The Wildcats did not make a two-point field goal until a Jarred Vanderbilt dunk with 5:15 left in the half. From there, the offenses picked up the pace, with Kentucky hitting six of its last seven from the field and Tennessee making its last three shots.
Neither team led by more than four the entire game. Kentucky held a 22-19 advantage with 2:22 left before halftime. However, Tennessee answered by scoring the next five points, taking a 24-22 lead with 1:09 remaining in the half. Kentucky tied the game on a dunk by Richards, but Tennessee’s Lamonte Turner hit a three with 10 seconds left in the half, giving the Vols a 27-24 advantage. However, Green raced to the offensive end and hit a jumper just before the buzzer, cutting Kentucky’s halftime deficit to 27-26.
In the second half, the offenses had more success early, with Kentucky hitting two of its first three shots, while Tennessee hit four of its first six attempts. The Vols would eventually take the game’s largest lead, 50-46, with 4:53 remaining, but Kentucky would rally to tie the game at 50-50.
Tennessee (18-5, 8-3) got 16 points from Turner and 13 from Jordan Bowden.
NOTABLES:
• Green reached 10 points by halfitme, the fourth time this season he’s scored in double figures in the first half
• UK fell to 42-10 in bounce-back games following a loss under John Calipari
• Kentucky is 51-25 under Calipari vs. teams in the Associated Press Top 25
• The Wildcats fell to 150-6 under Calipari when limiting the opponent to 63 or fewer points. UK had not lost when holding the opponent to 63 or less since the 2014 NCAA championship game vs. UConn. It also snapped a 60-game winning streak under that criteria
• Gilgeous-Alexander dished out six or more assists for the ninth time this season and the fourth time in the last six games
• It’s the first time Kentucky has lost both of its regular-season game vs. Tennessee since 1998-99
Bounce Back
The Wildcats don’t lose very often during the John Calipari era, but when they do, they almost always bounce back. UK is 42-10 under Calipari following a loss. The victory came after a rare set of back-to-back losses at South Carolina and Florida, the first consecutive losses since falling to Tennessee and Kansas in 2016-17.
The Wildcats have only lost back-to-back games 10 times during the Calipari era and they’ve never lost three in a row with Calipari on the sidelines. The last time UK lost three games in a row was in February 2009, when the Wildcats dropped four straight games to end the regular season.
Kentucky’s average margin of victory in the third game following consecutive losses under Calipari is 14.7 points.
Historically Young
It seems like with every John Calipari team youth is the story, but this year’s team is on a whole new level.
Zero seniors. Eight freshmen. Nearly 93 percent of last season’s scoring and almost 77 percent of the rebounding gone. And the leading returner, Wenyen Gabriel, averaged just 4.6 points and 4.8 rebounds a year ago.
The Wildcats began the season with 0.18 years of experience in the KenPom.com experience rankings. Not only is that the least experience of any team this season, it’s the most inexperienced team since KenPom.com began tracking its experience rankings in 2006-07. As the season has progressed, UK now has 0.19 years of experience, through games on Feb. 3.
For another perspective, only Mississippi Valley State (386) and Pittsburgh (648) return fewer minutes from last season than the Wildcats (890), according to a survey sent to all Division I men’s basketball schools.
Even for a Calipari-coached team, this team is extremely young. Entering the 2017-18 season, the average age of the Wildcats’ roster is just 19.43 years old. In an updated survey, no other team is younger than the Cats after Chattanooga added a player to its roster at the semester.
Although all of Calipari’s teams have been young, they’ve all had some sort of veteran presence. The 2010 team with John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins had Patrick Patterson. The 2012 national title squad featured Darius Miller. The unforgettable 2015 team that flirted with an undefeated season had Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress.
In another survey, Kentucky’s lineup features more underclassmen without a senior on the roster than any other school in the country. The Wildcats are one of just a handful of schools without any seniors on the roster and are tied for the fewest amount of upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) with just two. It’s worth noting that those upperclassmen are walk-ons.
