Tue Feb 09 2010
LEXINGTON - As Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari lowered his head with a thud against the microphone toward the end of his post-game interview at Rupp Arena Thursday night, it was perfectly clear what he thought of his team’s performance.
Despite a game where the Wildcats never trailed Sam Houston State and even had a 19-point lead at one point, offense was not the issue in UK’s 102-92 win in the opening round of the Cancun Challenge.
All Coach Cal wants for Christmas is defense. And in particular … 3-point defense.
The Wildcats, for the second game in a row, allowed a record 3-point night from an opponent. On Monday night, Miami of Ohio’s Nick Winbush drained 8-of-10 3-pointers. This time, it was Sam Houston’s Corey Allmond – who knocked down 11-of-16 3-pointers to break a Rupp Arena record and add to his team’s 18-of-38 night behind the arc.
Calipari was beside himself.
“I just called the rules committee and asked them to move the line back,” the frustrated coach said. “This may be, at this point, the worst defensive team that I have had since 1988.
“At the end of the day, if we are going to be what everyone thinks that we can be, we have to be one of the best defensive teams in the country,” he added. “Now think about what I just said. This may be one of the worst defensive teams since 1988, and I will tell you why. They have no urgency defensively, none.”
Now I’ll give the Cats one thing, when teams come to Rupp, it is their “Super Bowl” as John Wall told the media Thursday night. They play better than they ever have and maybe ever will.
Allmond – who had a career-high 37 points – hit a couple of his downtown bombs when the defense was good – and even once decided that he would double-clutch and drain one when the defense was perfect.
But like I said…a couple of times. The other eight or so threes were WIDE OPEN. It was like the Wildcats didn’t care if he got 100 points – they were going to score 102 anyway.
“If we don’t do better defensively, we are in trouble,” Calipari said. “I don’t know, do you think that we can score 100 against everybody because we are going to have to. They’re going to score 100 against us.”
Calipari chalked up this lack of effort to being young. He did play three freshmen and a sophomore for the majority of the game. He said they often failed to play defense for an entire possession.
Sounds like the NBA. Wall should fit in nicely. He may have been the one to have a front-row seat to most of Allmond’s 3-pointers, but he did score 21 points. Who needs defense when you have production like that?
Speaking of production, someone woke up DeMarcus Cousins and showed him where the basket was. He dropped 27 points and pulled down 18 rebounds for the Cats. He looked strong, quick and had great hands all night around the basket.
Offensive production was great for Kentucky. It was the best the dribble-drive offense has looked to date. But there were issues there as well.
UK had 23 turnovers. 23. The Cats’ guards Wall and Eric Bledsoe had 12 between them. Most of them came on sloppy passes and driving into four or five defenders and being surprised when there was nothing there.
Also, the Cats had zero points from their bench. It looked like those players – Jon Hood, Ramon Harris and Daniel Orton – were perfectly content being the guys who come in and hold the opponent in check while the “stars” get a breather.
If UK hopes to ever run with the likes of North Carolina, it’s going to need production out of at least nine guys to stay in the game. If not, the first half will be close, while teams like Kansas blow the Cats away in the second half.
The Cats now have to prepare the second round of the Cancun Challenge against Rider Saturday (tipoff at 1 p.m. on Fox South, FPB Ch. 37). Calipari said that Rider shoots the 3 even better than Sam Houston State.
I think the holidays have come just in time for Coach Cal. He can be thankful for the offense coming around sooner than he had hoped, but at the same time start sending out his letters to Santa asking for some defense.
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