Kentucky Hosts Mount St. Mary's on Friday
It’s an annual rite of passage, for nonconference opponents to come into Rupp Arena with hair on fire.
Some opponents – and it can feel like all of them sometimes – have a shooter who can’t miss. Others slow down or speed up the pace in an effort to score a program-defining upset.
What they have in common is a mentality.
“I think oftentimes teams coming in, especially in November and December – and you might even be able to extend that throughout the season – teams really seem to play with a reckless abandon,” assistant coach Joel Justus said, “really like they have nothing to lose.”
Those teams are playing like they don’t have anything to lose because they don’t. It’s all upside when you come to Lexington an underdog not even expected to compete with the mighty Wildcats.
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| Kentucky vs. Mount St. Mary’s | ||
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Fri., Nov. 22 – 7 p.m. ET |
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| Coverage | ||
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TV: SEC Network |
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| UK | Stats | MSM |
| 3-1 | Record | 1-4 |
| 0-0 | Conference Record | 0-0 |
| 76.5 | PPG | 60.2 |
| 63.0 | Opp PPG | 65.8 |
| .439 | FG% | .404 |
| .357 | Opp FG% | .421 |
| 41.2 | RPG | 33.4 |
| .213 | 3PT FG% | .281 |
| .275 | Opp 3PT FG% | .333 |
| .789 | FT% | .620 |
| 10.8 | APG | 9.8 |
| 5.0 | SPG | 6.4 |
| 3.3 | BPG | 2.6 |
He’s only experienced it three times now, but Keion Brooks already knows the feeling well.
“It makes the game interesting,” the freshman forward said. “Not afraid to take certain shots, not uptight. They’re just going out and playing. Those teams are always the most dangerous when they play with nothing to lose.”
You needn’t look any further than UK’s last two games for examples of that. First, Evansville upended the Wildcats on Nov. 12. Six days later, Utah Valley made a bid to do the same in rallying from 16 points down to close within one point in the final four minutes. UK fended off Utah Valley in an 82-74 victory, but now the No. 9/10 Wildcats (3-1) will welcome another nothing-to-lose opponent to Rupp in Mount St. Mary’s (1-4) at 7 p.m. on Friday.
The challenge for the Cats is to mirror the opponents’ approach.
“I think early on it’s something that they to acquire,” Justus said. “That’s a skill that these guys are starting to figure out. It’s something that Coach has addressed. I think he wants our team to play a little bit that way, like we have nothing to lose. So it’s something that we certainly have addressed with our guys and are trying to find out what kind of makes them more comfortable.”
A complicating factor on that front is the health of John Calipari’s team. One scholarship player, Dontaie Allen, is recovering from a knee injury and hasn’t been available at all. Another, Nick Richards, had to miss UK’s second exhibition with an ankle injury. Now, returning sophomores Immanuel Quickley (chest) and EJ Montgomery (ankle) are dealing with injuries.
“Whereas typically you’re able to have your practices look like the games or emulate the games and sometimes be tougher,” Justus said, “and I think that’s why our teams have been good here and great here because the practices sometimes have been tougher than the games. Until we can get back to that where we have a full complement and our full roster, I think we’re going to take some learning opportunities in the games.”
Nonetheless, UK is barely two weeks removed from a remarkable performance against preseason No. 1 Michigan State inside Madison Square Garden. Days later, Kentucky held Eastern Kentucky to 49 points in a dominant home opener.
“I think to start off the season the first two games the defense was tremendous,” Brooks said. “We came out with a fire and a passion to get stops. I feel like we kind of got complacent. We gotta get back to our defensive energy like what we were in Madison Square Garden, making it hard for opponents to score, taking them out of their stuff. We’re going to get back to it. It’s just a matter of focus and a matter of time.”
It’s just a matter of time. That’s true both for Quickley and Montgomery and for UK’s team as a whole. Challenges, and more opponents playing with that reckless abandon certainly lay ahead, but they are all part of the journey.
“It’s tough,” Justus said. “It’s tough to play here. It’s tough to play in front of 20,000 folks that are challenging you and cheering for you. These guys, this is new for them too. It’s a new team.”
Kentucky Holds off Utah Valley to Get Back on Track
John Calipari breathed a sigh of relief after his team survived another scare. Ashton Hagans scored a career-high 26 points, and No. 9/10 Kentucky fought through another close game beating Utah Valley 82-74 on Monday night.
“I’m happy we won,” Calipari said. “This season as long as it goes and being here and knowing how teams play against us, and how they’re charged up and then the next game they don’t play as well … whew. I was trying to be as positive as I could be until the end. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
The Wildcats (3-1) dropped out of the No. 1 spot in The Associated Press Top 25 after losing at home to Evansville last week, and they had to overcome a late surge to hold off the Wolverines.
Kentucky led by 16 points early in the second half, but Utah Valley steadily chipped away until TJ Washington’s 3-pointer got the Wolverines (3-2) within one at 68-67 with 3:26 remaining. Nate Sestina responded with a 3-point play that helped the Wildcats pull away.
Kentucky was without second-leading scorer Immanuel Quickley, who sat out because of a chest injury. Quickley had scored 16 points in each of the last two games.
The Wildcats also have been without forward EJ Montgomery, who has missed the past three games because of an ankle injury. Coupled with Quickley’s injury, Kentucky’s roster has dwindled to seven scholarship players, leaving the Wildcats short-handed in practice.
“We are who we are right now,” Calipari said. “We are what the score says we are. … We got to get EJ back, got to get Immanuel back and figure out what we are.”
Hagans also has battled a leg injury this season, but he has remained consistent.
“I was just staying focused,” Hagans said. “I was just staying in the gym and shooting and when I got the chance, I attacked the basket. If my teammates are open, I got them some shots, got everybody involved and play my role.”
Nick Richards had 21 points and 10 rebounds, while Tyrese Maxey added 14 points for Kentucky. Of note …
• Kentucky improved to 51-12 under Calipari following a loss and has never lost back-to-back home games under Calipari
• UK is now 248-41 all-time under Calipari vs. AP unranked competition
• The Wildcats outrebounded Utah Valley 46-27
• UK made 31 of 34 at the foul line (91.2%). It is the eighth-best free-throw shooting performance of the Calipari era (with a minimum of 10 attempts). It’s the first time UK had made 30 free throws in a game since making 30 vs. Auburn on March 14, 2015
• Hagans went 12 of 12 from the free-throw line, career bests in both categories. The last Wildcat to make at least 12 perfectly was Jodie Meeks, who was 14 of 14 at Tennessee on Jan. 13, 2009, en route to a UK single-game record 54-point performance
• Richards collected the second double-double of the season. He’s the third player in the Calipari era to post at least 20 points and 10 rebounds in two of the first four games of a season (Terrence Jones in 2010-11 and Julius Randle in 2013-14)
• Sestina’s 12 rebounds are the most by a Wildcat this season
• Hagans’ 20-point game was the second of his career; for Richards, it was his third. It’s the first time this season that multiple Wildcats have scored 20 or more in the same game
Bounce Back
Kentucky doesn’t lose very often during the John Calipari era, but when the Wildcats do, they almost always bounce back. UK is 51-12 under Calipari following a loss (record does not count end-of-season losses).
The Wildcats have only lost back-to-back games 12 times during the Calipari era with three of those losses having come during a four-game losing streak from Feb. 3-14, 2018. That was the first four-game losing streak under Calipari.
Previously, the last time UK lost four games in a row was in February 2009, when the Wildcats dropped four straight games to end the regular season. It was the first time Calipari had lost four straight since the end of the 2004-05 season at Memphis.
UK has never lost back-to-back home games under Calipari.
