Alabama Rematch Awaits Kentucky in Postseason Opener
The postseason is finally at hand.
Kentucky’s quarterfinal matchup in the SEC Tournament is set and the Wildcats will face Alabama, a familiar foe.
“It’s going to be a hard game for us,” John Calipari said. “They did beat us and they did it in a physical manner.”
The Crimson Tide built an 11-point lead with just over three minutes left in the game before Kentucky rallied to within a missed buzzer-beating 3 by Tyler Herro of completing the comeback. Even if the shot had fallen, the fact would still remain that Alabama outrebounded by UK by eight – the largest margin of any Wildcat opponent this season.
No. 10 seed Alabama (18-14) – fresh off an impressive comeback win over Ole Miss – will be looking to duplicate that feat in taking on second-seeded Kentucky (26-5) Friday at 7 p.m. ET at Bridgestone Arena. If you were to pick one player key to overcoming that kind of physical test, Reid Travis would likely be on the shortlist. It’s a good thing the big man will be making his return for the Cats’ SEC Tournament opener.
“He’s been terrific in practice,” Calipari said. “Kind of surprising. Conditioning looked OK. Asked him, ‘How’d you do that?’ ‘I was on that treadmill and that water going hard.’ “
Earlier in the week, Calipari suggested Travis’s return might come in short stretches as he works his way back from a sprained knee that has forced him to miss UK’s last five games. After seeing him in action, Coach Cal wasn’t so sure.
“I knew he was training,” Calipari said. “I knew he was going hard. I didn’t talk to the doctors about it. I knew that if he wanted to play, which I thought he did, he’ll be back and he’ll be fine. He’s been – he’s trained that way. He lost the weight that way. He conditions that way. He takes care of his body that way. He’s intense that way. I expect that there will be some jitters. He hasn’t played for two weeks or longer really, three weeks.”
For that reason, it’s unrealistic to expect Travis will immediately return to the form that had Calipari singing his praises for being the key to a blowout win over Tennessee in the outing before his injury at Missouri.
“With Reid being out for a few weeks coming back, we just gotta see, are we in sync?” Calipari said. “Is it going to change some of the stuff we’re doing? But we’ll see. When the game starts, we’ll have a good idea.”
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| Kentucky vs. Alabama | ||
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Fri., March 15 – 7 p.m. ET |
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TV: SEC Network |
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| UK | 2018-19 Stats | UA |
| 26-5 | Record | 18-14 |
| 15-3 | Conference Record | 8-10 |
| 76.8 | PPG | 72.3 |
| 65.2 | Opp PPG | 71.3 |
| .477 | FG% | .445 |
| .404 | Opp FG% | .436 |
| 38.5 | RPG | 37.8 |
| .359 | 3PT FG% | .339 |
| .347 | Opp 3PT FG% | .327 |
| .743 | FT% | .664 |
| 13.7 | APG | 12.3 |
| 6.0 | SPG | 4.5 |
| 5.0 | BPG | 4.7 |
Regardless whether Travis is able to jump back into a full-time role, his presence is meaningful – especially considering what the coming weeks will bring.
“Just gives you a toughness that we’re going to have to have,” Calipari said. “And not just in this game. Any game we play. If you’re not fighting and you’re not physical and tough at this point in the year, you’re losing. Just how it is.”
Alabama will provide the first test on that front, giving Kentucky a chance at revenge for that January loss in the process. Calipari doesn’t want his team thinking about that though. Focusing on the opponent is not the path to a deep run in March Madness, not in Coach Cal’s mind.
“We had terrific practices,” Calipari said. “What I keep telling them: You have to play to your training. You don’t play to the opponent. You don’t play because it’s tournament. You play to your training because you can do that for 40 minutes. It’s hard to play to another team. It’s hard to play for the emotion of the tournament for 40 minutes. You can do it for a while and so that’s what I’ve been on them hard. Just – that’s why we practice and we compete the way that we do in practice. It’s because we’ll play to our training.”
Balanced Scoring Effort Leads Kentucky Past Florida
Free throws seemed destined to be the saving grace for No. 6/6 Kentucky before it finally strung baskets together. Tyler Herro made his share of both, and that combination was important in putting away Florida.
Herro scored 16 points and led a big second-half run that helped the Wildcats overcome the Gators 66-57 on Saturday on Senior Day.
The Wildcats (26-5, 15-3 Southeastern Conference) went back and forth with the Gators (17-14, 9-9) early in the second half and trailed 40-39 with 13:46 remaining.
Herro had six points during a 15-2 spree, hitting a couple of shots in the lane and adding two free throws, to give Kentucky a 54-42 advantage. The Wildcats capped the seven-minute burst by scoring 10 straight points.
“I saw some lanes going to the basket,” said Herro, who made 6 of 11 from the field.
Herro hit all four free throws as Kentucky made 26 of 32 from the line. Florida finished 6 for 11 on free throws.
“Me and PJ (Washington) ran a little two-man game when they went man to man. We had to take whatever they gave us, but once they went man I felt like I had some lanes to drive,” Herro said.
Added coach John Calipari, “Tyler made some unbelievable plays. We made some shots and again, we’re a good free throw shooting team.”
Washington added 15 points and a game-high nine rebounds as Kentucky handed Florida its third consecutive loss. The Wildcats clinched the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament by virtue of its sweep of Auburn, which topped Tennessee earlier Saturday. It was a regular-season wrap-up for the Wildcats and Gators going into the SEC Tournament.
Ashton Hagans and Keldon Johnson each added 14 points, and Washington’s nine rebounds helped the Wildcats dominate the boards 39-23.
Itching to get on the #SECTourney court.
A post shared by Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@kentuckymbb) on Mar 14, 2019 at 5:44pm PDT
UK is 21-3 this season when outrebounding its opponent.
• It marked the final game in the current configuration of Rupp Arena. Offseason renovations, specifically the addition of chair-back seating in parts of the upper bowl, will reduce capacity to approximately 20,500. The attendance of 24,456 marked the sixth biggest in Rupp Arena history
• UK finished the home season 17-1, the 24th time in the 43-year history of Rupp Arena that UK had one or fewer losses during the home schedule
• The Wildcats honored senior Jonny David and graduate student Reid Travis before the game with Senior Day. David made his first career start but Travis missed his fifth consecutive game with a right knee sprain
• UK improved to 9-0 on Senior Day games under Calipari (there was no Senior Day in 2018 with no seniors on the roster)
• Kentucky improved to 169-7 (.960) under Calipari when keeping the opponent to 63 points or less
• UK improved to 17-0 when Herro scores 15 or more points
• The Wildcats are now 244-40 all-time against Associated Press unranked competition under Calipari
Cats Seeking Fifth Straight SEC Tournament Title
Kentucky will be the No. 2 seed in the annual Southeastern Conference Tournament when action begins Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee. The Wildcats, who earned the coveted double bye (automatically advancing to the quarterfinals), will play the winner of No. 7 seed Ole Miss vs. No. 10 seed Alabama on Friday in Nashville at approximately 7 p.m. ET in the quarterfinals.
UK finished in a tie for second place with Tennessee with a 15-3 league record but owned the tiebreaker over the Volunteers for the No. 2 seed. The teams split their head-to-head series, both lost to No. 1 seed LSU, both went undefeated vs. No. 4 seed South Carolina, but UK went 2-0 vs. No. 5 seed Auburn while UT lost its only matchup with the Tigers. That was the deciding factor.
The Wildcats are seeking their fifth straight SEC Tournament championship and seventh in John Calipari’s 10 seasons at Kentucky. UK will need two wins to advance to their ninth SEC Tournament title game in the last 10 seasons. The Wildcats have earned a double bye in every season since it went into effect in 2013.
Kentucky leads the league with 31 SEC Tournament titles. The Wildcats are 133-25 all-time in the SEC Tournament, including 44-11 in the quarterfinals. Under Calipari the Wildcats are 22-3 in SEC Tournament games.
UK defeated Ole Miss last week, 80-76, in Oxford, Mississippi, in the lone meeting this season between the two schools. The Wildcats are 15-0 all-time vs. Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament, including 6-0 in the quarterfinals.
If Kentucky faces Alabama, it would be the fourth straight season the Wildcats have faced the Crimson Tide in the SEC Tournament. UK has won all three of the previous matchups and is 16-2 vs. Alabama in the league tournament and is 5-1 in the quarterfinals. But, Alabama won the lone regular-season meeting back on Jan. 5 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 77-75.
Also on Kentucky’s side of the bracket is No. 3 seed Tennessee, No. 6 seed Mississippi State, No. 11 seed Texas A&M and No. 14 seed Vanderbilt.
The tournament returns to Bridgestone Arena in Nashville for the fourth time in the last five seasons after a pit stop in St. Louis last season. UK has won the SEC Tournament the last three times it has been in Nashville and four times under Calipari.
S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!
Kentucky has the unquestionable reputation as the league’s gold standard. Since the SEC’s inception in 1932-33, the Wildcats have been the most dominant team in the league, recording a 997-281 mark (.780) in regular-season conference play. Only two other teams have won more than 700 regular-season SEC games (Alabama and Tennessee), and no other team has a better winning percentage.
• Kentucky has averaged 11.6 wins and only 3.3 losses per season in 86 seasons in the SEC
• UK has won 48 SEC titles and 31 SEC Tournament championships
• The Wildcats have won 16 of the last 26 SEC Tournament titles
• Kentucky has won at least a share of five of the last 10 SEC regular-season championships under head coach John Calipari
• UK has played in the championship game of the SEC Tournament in eight of Calipari’s nine seasons, winning the tournament six times, including each of the last four
• Eight teams made the 2018 NCAA Tournament field, the second most of any league in the country and a new conference record. The league went 8-8
• Four teams from the SEC are in the March 11 Associated Press Top 25 with three in the top 10 and another team receiving votes. In mid-January, the SEC had six teams in the AP Top 25, the most since the league had six on Jan. 21, 2003
• Seven SEC schools rank in the top 40 of the NCAA’s March 11 NET rankings
• The SEC’s .747 winning percentage entering league play was its second-best winning percentage in the last 10 years, behind only last season’s .763 mark
