Cats Welcome Colonels for Home Opener
It doesn’t get much more glamorous than dropping 26 in Madison Square Garden against the No. 1 team in the country in your college debut.
But for Tyrese Maxey, the glamour melted away when he stepped off the plane in Lexington in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
“Come back home, go to sleep, go to class the next morning and get back in the gym,” Maxey said. “Start grinding again.”
The morning after his coming-out party as he walked to his 9 a.m. class, Maxey was no different than before he left for New York City. Other than being a little sleep deprived, he was still that same freshman guard who always wears a smile.
His team is similarly unchanged. You might think winning the second-ever season-opening matchup between the nation’s two top-ranked teams would be a transformative experience, but the Wildcats didn’t surprise themselves on Tuesday night.
“Honestly, I feel like our confidence level was high going into the game,” Maxey said. “I feel like we prepared, we did all the conditioning and hard work during the offseason and the preseason, and I feel like we wanted to go out there and show them why the work was needed.”
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| Kentucky vs. Eastern Kentucky | ||
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Fri., Nov. 8 – 7 p.m. ET |
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TV: ESPN |
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| UK | Stats | EKU |
| 1-0 | Record | 1-0 |
| 0-0 | Conference Record | 0-0 |
| 69.0 | PPG | 79.0 |
| 62.0 | Opp PPG | 68.0 |
| .380 | FG% | .519 |
| .393 | Opp FG% | .324 |
| 30.0 | RPG | 40.0 |
| .333 | 3PT FG% | .429 |
| .192 | Opp 3PT FG% | .360 |
| .781 | FT% | .760 |
| 9.0 | APG | 10.0 |
| 4.0 | SPG | 6.0 |
| 4.8 | BPG | 5.3 |
Work, as it turns out, continues to be needed. It’s that reality that is keeping the Cats’ feet on the ground as they prepare for their home opener against Eastern Kentucky University on Friday at 7 p.m.
“We want to be great,” Maxey said. “We want to be one of the best teams in the country and I feel like we’re going to keep putting in work and not stop practicing and practice really hard.”
The visiting Colonels will bring a 1-0 record into Rupp Arena after taking down Chattanooga, 79-68. Under second-year head coach, Eastern Kentucky applies full-court pressure liberally and plays at an exceptionally fast pace. A season ago, EKU’s games featured an average of 78.8 possessions per game (second nationally). The Colonels’ opener featured 81 possessions.
Against Chattanooga, Darius Hicks had 18 points and 12 rebounds in his debut after sitting out last season as a transfer from North Carolina State while sophomore guard Houston King scored 19 points and buried four 3s. Ball security will be at a premium against that EKU press, which forced 20 turnovers.
“Now, this is going to be a hard game because this team is pressing for 40 minutes,” Calipari said. “They’re gonna scramble and do stuff that this team has not seen.”
Though how UK handles pressure on offense will bear watching, that end of the floor is not what’s most likely to make the Cats special early in the season. That’s UK’s defense, which held an offense guided by national player of the year favorite Cassius Winston to 39.3% shooting and a mere 0.86 points per possession.
“What I saw defensively for this early – this is my 11th year – I’m not sure if there’s a couple of teams that were better defensively at this point than we were that game,” Calipari said.
Playing with that edge for one of the season’s showcase games is one thing, but it’s another to do that on a consistent basis. For that reason, Coach Cal doesn’t pretend to know what to expect from his team Friday night.
“When you’re coaching young guys, you have no idea,” Calipari said.
Maxey, on the other hand, feels like he has a better idea.
“We have a bunch of guys that just love playing basketball,” Maxey said. “It doesn’t who we play, we always want to play again and have a lot of fun again and experience that same feeling.”
Kentucky Knocks Off Top-Ranked Michigan State
Kentucky’s latest freshman star is a guard from Texas who likes to smile wide and take big shots. Tyrese Maxey did both in upsetting No. 1/1 Michigan State on Tuesday night in the State Farm Champions Classic.
Maxey scored 26 points, including a clutch 3 that beat the shot clock with a minute left, as the second-ranked Wildcats opened the season with a 69-62 in New York.
A day after his 19th birthday, Maxey came off the bench at Madison Square Garden and had one of the best debuts for a freshman in coach John Calipari’s 11 years at Kentucky, which has been filled with one-and-done guards like John Wall and Devin Booker. As a matter of fact, it was the most points scored by a Kentucky freshman in a debut in school history.
”I wanted him to come in firing,” Calipari said.
The Associated Press Nos. 1 and 2 teams opened their seasons against each other for just the second time ever and for the first time since 1975, and the Wildcats made their case to be top-ranked next week.
Michigan State entered the season as the No. 1 team in the country for the first time, but aside from All-American Cassius Winston, the Spartans struggled to score against an athletic, active defense from UK. Winston had 21 points. This Kentucky team is built around returning contributors instead of freshmen, but Maxey asserted himself in his first game. After Winston cut the lead to three on a three-point play with 1:27 left, Maxey hit a 3 from way behind the line to make it 65-60 with 59 seconds left.
”Honestly, I just trust my training,” Maxey said. ”I shot that shot a thousand times.”
It was a marquee, event but a choppy game. Neither team shot 40% from the field. They combined to take 50 free throws.
The Spartans couldn’t find the range from 3, going 5 for 26. Michigan State had whittled a 10-point halftime deficit down to four when Kentucky went on a 9-0 run behind 3s from Kahlil Whitney and Nate Sestina, pushing the lead to 54-41 with 10:00 left in the second half.
Kentucky’s veteran backcourt of Ashton Hagans (11 points) and Immanuel Quickley (10 points), both sophomores, were solid but were outshined by Maxey.
”He put on a show,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. ”He’s got great intangibles. He’s happy-go-lucky but plays hard.” The 6-foot-3 guard attacked the basket and made big 3s.
”It was an amazing birthday celebration,” Maxey said. ”I’m very happy. Happy for me and my guys. It was a lot of fun out there.”
Of note …
• UK improved to 14-11 vs. Michigan State and has won three of the last five matchups, including back-to-back games
• UK is now won 10 of its last 11 season openers, all John Calipari
• UK improved to 6-3 in AP 1-2 matchups but captured its first win in a 1-2 meeting since the second-ranked Wildcats defeated Calipari’s top-ranked UMass team 81-74 on March 30, 1996
• The Wildcats defeated the No. 1 team in back-to-back seasons for the first time in school history. UK topped Tennessee 86-69 on Feb. 16
• UK is 3-2 vs. the top-ranked team under Calipari
• Kentucky moved to 5-4 in the State Farm Champions Classic and 2-1 against Michigan State in the event
• UK improved to 38-14 in games in the New York City area and 14-4 in Madison Square Garden
• Kentucky is 188-16 when limiting opponents to 40% or worse from the field and 174-7 when limiting the opponent to 63 points or fewer under Calipari
• The Wildcats improved to 271-6 under Calipari when leading by at least 10 points
Maxey-mum Effort Shines Bright on Basketball’s Grandest Stage
Since John Calipari took over the reins of the Kentucky men’s basketball program, 27 freshmen have been drafted into the NBA. Of those selections, 25 were taken in the opening round. Twenty-one went in the lottery. Thirteen were top-10 picks. And three have been selected No. 1 overall.
None of those players had the debut that Tyrese Maxey produced Tuesday night. Even more impressive? It happened in perhaps the biggest opening matchup and on the grandest of stages in Madison Square Garden in New York. A day removed from his 19th birthday, Maxey came off the bench to ignite the Wildcats past the nation’s No. 1 team. He scored 26 points on 7 of 12 from the field with a trio of 3-pointers. That mark topped Terrence Jones’ 25 points against East Tennessee State in 2010 for the most points by a freshman in their debut as a Wildcat. He also became the first UK freshman to score 20 or more points against the No. 1 ranked team. In fact, it’s the most points by any UK player against the No. 1 ranked team since Jamal Mashburn, a sophomore at the time, had 28 in an overtime loss to No. 1 Duke on March 28, 1992.
How Maxey produced may have been equally as remarkable.
His first points didn’t come until just after the midway point of the first half, but he scored seven straight points to help Kentucky earn an 11-point halftime lead.
From the 10:03 mark of the second half until a pair of Ashton Hagans’ free throws with 37 seconds to play, Maxey scored or assisted on 14 straight UK points to hold off the Michigan State rally led by All-American Cassius Winston.
There was no bigger shot that night though than his final 3-pointer with a minute to play. Michigan State had cut the lead to just two and momentum seemed to be swinging to the veteran-laden Spartans.
In front of, two of the aforementioned former UK stars, John Wall and Jones, as well as NBA Champion Kevin Durant, sitting courtside and with the shot clock winding down, Maxey took 6-foot-6 Aaron Henry off the dribble and launched a shot nearly four feet behind the 3-point line.
And with one swish of the net, Maxey etched his name into Kentucky record books and introduced himself to the nation.
Here’s a list of the top performances by a UK player in a debut:
1. Mike Casey (sophomore) – 28 vs. Michigan (12/2/1967)
2. Tyrese Maxey (freshman) – 26 vs. Michigan State (11/5/2019)
T3. Cotton Nash (sophomore) – 25 vs. Miami, Ohio (12/2/1961)
T3. Terrence Jones (freshman) – 25 vs. East Tennessee State (11/12/2010)
5. Eric Bledsoe (freshman) – 24 vs. Morehead State (11/13/2009)
Best in the Bluegrass
Kentucky welcomes the first of two in-state foes to Rupp Arena in 2019-20 hen Eastern Kentucky comes to town Friday.
UK has dominated teams in the state under John Calipari. Kentucky is 17-2 against in-state foes with Calipari at the helm. Calipari and the Cats are 2-0 against EKU and the Wildcats are 12-0 all-time against the Colonels.
The overall mark also includes a 10-2 record vs. Louisville. Two of the victories over the Cardinals were in postseason play. UK’s four-game winning streak was snapped in 2016-17 but the Wildcats won all five meetings played in Rupp Arena, including a 29-point blowout in 2017-18, the third-biggest margin of victory in the history of the series. Louisville’s two wins are by a combined six points.
Here’s a list of the meetings between the state’s two premier programs since Calipari took over at UK:
• Jan. 2, 2010 – UK won 71-62 at Rupp Arena
• Dec. 31, 2010 – UK won 78-63 at the KFC Yum! Center
• Dec. 31, 2011 – UK won 69-62 at Rupp Arena• March 31, 2012 – UK won 69-61 at the Superdome (NCAA Final Four in New Orleans)
• Dec. 29, 2012 – Louisville won 80-77 at the KFC Yum! Center
• Dec. 28, 2013 – UK won 73-66 at Rupp Arena
• March 28, 2014 – UK won 74-69 at Lucas Oil Stadium (NCAA Sweet 16 in Indianapolis)
• Dec. 27, 2014 – UK won 58-50 at the KFC Yum! Center
• Dec. 26, 2015 – UK won 75-73 at Rupp Arena
• Dec. 21, 2016 – Louisville won 73-70 at the KFC Yum! Center
• Dec. 29, 2017 – UK won 90-61 at Rupp Arena
• Dec. 29, 2018 – UK won 71-58 at the KFC Yum! Center
