Southern Illinois UK’s First Chance to Find Their Chip
Kentucky might have landed in Lexington in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, but that didn’t dampen John Calipari’s enthusiasm when he woke just a few short hours later.
Alas, NCAA rules didn’t allow him to channel that vigor in the way he would have liked.
“I woke up, got about four hours of sleep, got in at 3:30 in the morning and when I came in I was mad we didn’t have practice,” Calipari said.
He might have had to wait a little longer to coach his team after a blowout loss to Duke in the State Farm Champions Classic, but the delay didn’t change his message once he did.
“Well first of all, you want it to hurt,” Calipari said. “And then I want you to look in the mirror and be real, no delusion. They were a better team and they played as a team. They worked together. We worked against each other. They played harder with more of a chip, which is usually us, and I’ll even go further and say they were better coached than we were.”
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| Kentucky vs. Southern Illinois | ||
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Fri., Nov. 9 – 7 p.m. ET |
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| Coverage | ||
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TV: SEC Network |
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| UK | 2018-19 Stats | SIU |
| 84.0 | PPG | 69.9 |
| 118.0 | Opp PPG | 69.1 |
| .441 | FG% | .462 |
| .544 | Opp FG% | .438 |
| 37.0 | RPG | 32.7 |
| .235 | 3PT FG% | .356 |
| .462 | Opp 3PT FG% | .333 |
| .737 | FT% | .696 |
| 17.0 | APG | 14.1 |
| 1.0 | SPG | 7.5 |
| 5.0 | BPG | 3.6 |
Those are painful truths, but necessary ones. They also are a marked departure from a few months ago during the Big Blue Bahamas Tour, when the Wildcats were capturing the imagination of their fans and stoking the fires of expectations with a string of double-digit victories. The loss to Duke might have tempered expectations for many, but Calipari’s perspective on his team’s long-term prospects is unchanged.
“I knew then and I know now: We have a chance of being really good, but I knew even then, ‘Boy, we got a ways to go,’ ” Calipari said. “And so that may have hurt us more than helped us. This may have helped us more than hurt us. We just gotta see.”
Both the beauty and the challenge of that is the verdict is entirely up to this team.
“This is one that you grow from,” Calipari said. “You learn from and it changes your whole mentality about how you approach, or it kind of caves you in.”
When Calipari talks the mentality that needs changing, there are two primary things he has in mind. First, the Cats must pull in the same direction.
“Guys were acting like it was high school,” Calipari said. “Then we got down, ‘I’m gonna get mine now.’ What? You don’t play that way at Kentucky. You tried to get yours and now we’re down 30. Why’d you do that? ‘Well, he did it.’ Oh really? So he does it, so you do it, what about him?”
Second – and even more importantly – they must play with the kind of edge that Duke used to sink the Cats.
“Duke played with a chip,” Calipari said. “They were gonna show us they were better and each individual player was gonna show our players they were better. And maybe their coach was showing me he was better. But, they all had a chip on their shoulder. That’s us. My whole career that’s what it’s been about.”
Calipari has long been known for his ability to get the most out of his teams by molding a playing style to fit his personnel. That’s a work in progress for this group, but demanding maximum effort about Calipari that never changes.
“I am still learning how to coach these guys individually and collectively,” Calipari said. “But, I say this: They have got to go play. Just go play. Be who you are. If the other guy outworks you, you should not be in the game and don’t expect to be in the game. That is just pretty much my history as a coach. If you don’t dive on the floor, I took you out.”
The first item on Calipari’s short-term to-do list is to find a group of five players who will “fight together.” The players’ first chance to earn spots in that group will come quickly, as No. 2/2 UK (0-1) will host Southern Illinois in its Rupp Arena debut. The game will be the Salukis’ season opener and a test for UK, as Southern Illinois returns all five starters from a team that won 20 games a season ago and finished second to Final Four participant Loyola in the Missouri Valley Conference.
“We’re playing an opponent, Southern Illinois, (that) brings back their four leading scorers,” Calipari said. “They’ve got inside players that can really play. They shoot the ball well. A team that can beat us if we don’t play harder than they play, we lose and we move on to the next game.”
Really, that’s the essence of it all.
“I’ll say it again: I like this team,” Calipari said. “I like the people, the players, the way they treat each other. Now, we gotta have a little chip. We gotta get hungrier.”
Although Tuesday’s loss to Duke brought an end to two season-opening streaks — the Wildcats had won nine straight regular-season openers under John Calipari and Calipari had a 14-game streak going back to his time at Memphis — Kentucky still has a home opener streak intact. The Wildcats have won nine straight games — all nine of Calipari’s home openers — in their first game of the season at Rupp Arena.
UK is 101-14 all-time in home openers, including a 38-3 mark in Rupp Arena. The last time UK lost a home opener was a 111-103 loss to VMI on Nov. 14, 2008.
Kentucky Picked to Win 49th SEC Title
With a mix of seasoned veterans and another crop of talented newcomers, Kentucky will once again be the hunted. Of course that’s the same mantra every season, but a select panel of media confirmed the standard for 2018-19 when it voted the Wildcats to win their sixth regular-season title under 10th-year head coach John Calipari.
Should Kentucky achieve the feat, it would mark the program’s 49th overall regular-season title.
It’s the 14th time since the 1998-99 season the Wildcats are the overall preseason favorite. Calipari has directed his teams to regular-season SEC crowns in 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Kentucky has claimed the SEC Tournament title in each of the last four seasons and six in all, winning in 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Each school selected media members that cover their team and additional media from across the nation were selected by the conference office to comprise the voting panel. Points were compiled on a 14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. Each media member also voted for two All-SEC teams.
Wildcats Turn Up for Tune-Ups
Kentucky went 6-0 during its exhibition season, counting the foreign tour to the Bahamas.
Although the games don’t count in the official records, the Wildcats have a knack for taking care of business in exhibition games nonetheless. UK improved to 136-12 all-time in exhibition games with its win over Indiana University of Pennsylvania last week and has won its last 15 scrimmages, dating back to Nov. 2, 2014, vs. Pikeville.
Including the foreign tour games in the Bahamas, Kentucky was impressive in its six exhibition games. The Wildcats outscored their opponents by an average of 27.7 points per game. UK shot 50.9 percent from the field while holding the competition to 36.2 percent from the floor. Kentucky was most impressive on the glass during its exhibition season, outrebounding opponents by an average of 16.3 boards per game.
Five players averaged double figures, led by PJ Washington and Tyler Herro with 15.0 points per game. Reid Travis averaged a double-double with 12.8 points and 10.8 rebounds per contest. Keldon Johnson (12.8 points per game) and Nick Richards (11.5 ppg) also averaged in double figures.
UK Drops Season Opener to Duke in Champions Classic
Keldon Johnson scored 23 points and Reid Travis had 22, but No. 2/2 Kentucky lost to No. 4/3 Duke 118-84 on Tuesday night in the State Farm Champions Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse to open the 2018-19 season. Tyler Herro added 14 points and a team-high nine rebounds for the Wildcats.
RJ Barrett led Duke with 33 points, while Zion Williamson had 28 and Cam Reddish had 22.
Duke (1-0) hit 43 of 79 (54.4 percent) from the floor, including 12 of 26 (46.2 percent) from 3-point range, while winning the rebounding battle 38-37. The Blue Devils had just four turnovers, while Kentucky had 15. Duke turned those UK miscues into 27 points, while Kentucky scored eight points off Duke’s four turnovers.
UK (0-1) hit 26 of 59 (44.1 percent) from the floor, making 4 of 17 (23.5 percent) from behind the arc. The Wildcats were able to convert 28 of their 38 free throws, for 73.7-percent shooting from the line.
Duke got on the board first via a Tre Jones 3-pointer and the Blue Devils quickly built an 8-2 lead. Kentucky cut the lead to 11-8 on a jumper by Johnson, but Duke answered with a 9-0 run to lead 20-8.
The Blue Devils led by as many as 21 points before UK began chipping away at the lead. A 13-4 run, capped by a Johnson jumper, cut the lead to 38-26 with 6:50 left in the first half. But the Cats would get no closer in the half, and Duke took a 59-42 lead into the break. The Blue Devils hit 22 of 40 (55 percent) from the floor in the first half, including six of 12 from behind the arc. Meanwhile, Kentucky hit 13 of 32 (40.6 percent), but just one of 10 from behind the arc.
The Blue Devils scored the first seven points of the second half to lead by 24. Kentucky would get no closer in the second half. Johnson’s 23 points were tied for the fifth most by a Kentucky player in his debut. Travis’ 22 were tied for eighth in school history. Including his career at Stanford, it was Travis’ 70th career game in double-figure scoring.
Some numbers that weren’t so pretty for the Wildcats to see Tuesday do shed some light on the overall success of the program under John Calipari, in season openers and in the Champions Classic:
