Cats Rebound for Impressive Win at Arkansas
You couldn’t have drawn up a worse start for Kentucky.
Arkansas was bombing 3s and building a big lead. The Wildcats appeared frazzled and the crowd at Bud Walton Arena smelled blood. Most urgently, the Cats just didn’t seem nearly tough enough to overcome a fired-up Arkansas team.
They found their own fire.
“I’ll tell you, I’m proud,” John Calipari said. “To be able to come in here, this is a hard place to play, the environment.”
After falling behind 11-0 in the opening minutes, the Cats clawed their way back to a halftime tie. Then they did themselves one better, with UK (19-9, 8-7 Southeastern Conference) dominating over the final 13 minutes to become just the second team this season to down Arkansas (19-9, 8-7 SEC) on its home floor with an 87-72 victory.
“We kept calling them over,” Calipari said. “I said, ‘You’re in the game. Can you imagine? You stemmed the tide.’ The thing that I can’t do for these kids: There’s experiences that they’ve gotta live that I cannot talk them through. When you’re playing all freshmen—I’ll make that statement again: all freshmen—there’s experiences that they have to go through. One of them’s being down 11-0, on the road, to a team that was so hyped to play this game that it was crazy.”
UK’s slow start was felt most keenly on the glass, where Arkansas grabbed nine of the game’s first 10 rebounds. That included one possession on which the Razorbacks missed three 3-pointers in a row and rebounded each before Daryl Macon finally buried a 3-pointer.
From that point forward, though, the Cats ruled the boards. UK outrebounded Arkansas 45-20 starting at the 16:23 mark of the first half and 46-29 for the game. That marks the second straight game the Cats have had a rebounding margin of plus-17 after they outrebounded Alabama 44-27 in a win Saturday.
“Mainly we just want to crash the boards and dominate the boards every game,” said Jarred Vanderbilt, who had 11 points and nine rebounds. “I feel like we had that advantage just considering how long and strong we are down in the post. Any missed shot, one of us should have a hand on it.”
When talking about that length, Vanderbilt was alluding the lineup Calipari went with for much of the final 13:16, during which UK outscored Arkansas 31-11 to turn a five-point deficit around. During that time, some combination of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Quade Green, Kevin Knox, PJ Washington, Wenyen Gabriel and Jarred Vanderbilt was on the floor for all but 1:11. The six rewarded him by scoring 82 of UK’s 87 points, led by Knox’s 23.
“Well here’s what I’ve done: I’ve done away with the rotation, because everybody took advantage,” Calipari said. “They just did what they wanted to do. They know they were going in. So we have no rotation now. What I’m doing is if a guy’s playing well, he’s staying in as long as he can. ‘Please sub yourself and I’ll get you back in.’ And I’ll ride the guys who are playing. It’s that time of the year.”
Reaching the point where UK can win a road game going away against a likely NCAA Tournament team might have taken longer than anyone would have liked, but the goal has always been to peak at this point. Credit for the fact that it seems to be happening goes in large part to each player zeroing in on a specific set of responsibilities.
A week and a half ago – in the thick of the losing streak that now seems a distant memory – Coach Cal held a meeting in which he spelled out roles for each player on the team. There would be no negotiation. If you weren’t capable of filling the role, you weren’t going to play. Neither would you if you insisted on doing more. Players didn’t balk.
“We’re getting better because we’ve settled in on how we’re playing,” Calipari said. “There were times we looked confused. You know why? They were. I just tried to make it clear how we’re playing and why we’re playing the way we’re playing. A lot of this was on me. When you’re playing freshmen, you can’t blame them.”
Calipari never has and never will.
“These kids, this is all new stuff,” Calipari said. “I’ve said, most of this is on me to figure out and I’m slowly starting to figure out this team and I’m happy with the direction we’re going, but this league is a bear.”
