Kentucky Faces Miles College in Second Exhibition Game
Exactly one week after its first exhibition game, Kentucky returns to the court for its final preseason opportunity on Friday, facing Miles College at Rupp Arena.
Kentucky opened its exhibition season with a 95-72 win over Kentucky Wesleyan. Keion Brooks Jr. and TyTy Washington Jr. each had 18 points to lead the Cats, while Davion Mintz had 12 and Oscar Tshiebwe had 11.
Kentucky head coach John Calipari and his staff have used the last week to correct mistakes from the Kentucky Wesleyan game and to build toward the regular season, which begins on Tuesday.
Assistant coach Jai Lucas said on Tuesday that the Cats are still working on the basics and won’t be giving away many secrets on Friday.
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| Kentucky vs. Miles College | ||
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Fri., Nov. 5 – 7 p.m. ET |
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TV: SEC Network |
“Some of the principles that we are trying to enforce, we stick to those,” Lucas said. “Like, one of the things we’ve talked about is playing fast, playing with speed. Trying to do that. Try to see how many times we can get it in the paint, get it in the post. Things that are an every day occurrence.”
Lucas and the staff think that this group of Wildcats is built to play with speed.
“We think we have the team that can play that way, especially with a small guard with Sahvir (Wheeler), you kind of have to play that way,” Lucas said. “We have other pieces that kind of fit in, like TyTy. We play fast, it can open up shooting for CJ (Fredrick), Kellan (Grady) and Dontaie (Allen). We’re built for speed.”
One of the things that can help the Cats play even faster is having two points guards on the floor at the same time. Against Kentucky Wesleyan, Wheeler and Washington were often paired together. Lucas likes that lineup.
“We’re playing two point guards. It’s one of those things, whoever gets the ball is the point guard,” Lucas said. “We just see it as an advantage. Good college teams, most of them who have won championships here in the past couple of years play more than one point guard at a time. Two point guards give us an advantage. You have two guys who can create shots for others.”
While speed is important, the Cats also know that they will need to be physical against certain opponents. Tshiebwe knows that having that element available is important moving forward.
“We have to be physical. (Kentucky Wesleyan) was good, but they weren’t really strong,” Tshiebwe said. “If we play against somebody that’s strong, we must play physical.”
Miles College, located in Fairhope, Alabama, plays on the Division II level. The Golden Bears were 10-1 last year in a season that was shortened due to COVID-19 restrictions. Lucas knows that Miles will pose a decent challenge to the Cats.
“Pretty good challenge. They’re a pretty good team,” Lucas said. “They won a lot of games last year. They try to take away what we want to do.”
The Cats will hope to show improvement from the first exhibition, all while getting ready for the season opener against Duke on Tuesday.
