Monmouth Win a ‘Good First Step’ for Cats
John Calipari set a clear standard for his team’s defense this week: improvement.
Kentucky certainly met that standard Wednesday night.
“We are who we are,” Calipari said. “I’m not going to try to force it along, we’re not skipping steps. This was a good first step for us.”
No. 10/9 UK posted season best totals in nearly every defensive category against Monmouth, from field-goal percentage (.276) to 3-point percentage (.125) to points allowed. The result was a 90-44 win – UK’s most lopsided of the season – and a much happier Coach Cal.
“I told them, this is the best we played,” Calipari said. “And it’s because of what we did defensively. And as they guard, do you see them building their own confidence on offense? When you guard and you build confidence in yourself you’re going to be aggressive on offense too.”
UK shot 56.6 percent from the field and buried 10 3-pointers, both season highs. Tyler Herro made a couple of those 3-pointers and finished with a team-best 16 points to lead Kentucky, but his eight rebounds and five steals were also team highs.
“I’ve been taking a lot of pride in (defense) personally,” Herro said. “Obviously as a team we gotta get better, but Coach has been telling me if I can defend it’s going to be hard to keep me off the floor.”
Herro, with his propensity for finding his way into passing lanes, has become an example of one of three defensive tenets Calipari is preaching.
“I put on the board, to have defensive confidence, first of all you got to talk, so if everyone’s talking and they’re chattering you’re more confident,” Calipari said. “If you anticipate you’re going to be more confident defensively. That’s what he does. The third part of it is, you have to trust that you’re teammates have your back if you try to do something. That’s help the helper. You’re going to get beat some. But if you’re aggressive and you know and you trust your team, you’ll go and do the stuff Tyler’s doing, you’ll run through, you’ll go for a steal that’s thrown over your head and your teammate steals it.”
Though improvement is the overarching goal, Calipari has also implemented a few coaching tactics to properly direct his young team. Defensive confidence is one, while another is intended to motivate his team to string together quality defensive possessions.
“We also added something, three stops in a row equals a kill,” Calipari said. “Now we had two stops in a row probably eight times, seven eight times, nine. But we had five kills. That’s how you stretch games out.”
Calipari has also instituted a rule that a group of five players gets to stay in the game until it allows six points on defense, while one of his assistants made a suggestion to improve another facet of UK’s defense.
“Tony Barbee said, we got to put in a transition defensive drill because that’s where our issues start,” Calipari said. “And we did it for two days and we did it today. It was great move. And again that’s why you have a staff of experienced coaches, so they can come up and have ideas too. And we did it for three days and all of a sudden our transition defense looked a little bit different today.”
That was true for most facets of Kentucky’s game Wednesday, including the very simplest that also happen to be the most important.
“I’m just going with the guys that are going to go with energy,” Calipari said. “We don’t need cool, I don’t care what it looks like, we got to get going. And holding them responsible for it and but when for me when I don’t have to coach that, I’m happy. Like today was a fun game for me to coach.”
Calipari’s next chance will come on Saturday, when the Wildcats host the best team they will have played since the season opener. Last season, UNC Greensboro won 27 games, earned a No. 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament and very nearly took down Gonzaga in the first round. This season, UNCG is 7-1, with the Spartans’ only loss coming on the road to LSU.
No better time than that for a good second step.
“I think to follow up on Saturday, we play a really good team, but I think being able to bring the same energy we brought today is going to be key,” Herro said. “That’s just how it’s going to add up throughout the season.”
