Well, this was Kentucky's first game since losing the nations leading shot blocker Nerlens Noel for the season to a knee injury he suffered at Florida. It wouldn't take long to see how these young Cats would respond with the heart and soul of their team gone. Would they come together, play as a team, or would they implode. In forty minutes, we would find out...
We got the first surprise of the game when Jarrod Polson was named a starter, the first of his career. Considering how Ryan Harrow played at Florida, it's not a huge shock. The second line up change Calipari made was benching Alex Poythress in favor of Kyle Wiltjer. That last one is not a bad change in my opinion, Alex always seems to pick up a foul or two early and mentally it takes him out of the rest of the contest. Plus, this is more than likely was a motivation tactic instituted by Cal considering how much he complained about lack of guard play at Florida and the lack of effort by Poythress.
At the start of the contest, it was clear Nerlens was missing as Tennessee got 3 straight offensive rebounds. They will have to find a way to make up for what they lost in Nerlens Noel. The Vols struggled early to convert under the basket and its a good thing to. With the amount of wide open shots they missed, the Cats easily could have been down 9-0 in the first 2 minutes of the game.
Mays opened the scoring for the Cats, hitting a three from the corner to give the Cats their first lead with 18:14 to go 3-1. On the next possession, Archie Goodwin made a good drive to the rim for a layup. That is what he is capable of when he plays smart instead of just head down and driving.
At the first timeout, Tennessee led 7-5 after a senseless turnover by Kyle Wiltjer. But, as soon as they returned from the break, Poythress checked in and immediately scored under the basket. Kentucky will need him play with 100% effort for the remainder of the season.
Tennessee's game plan was obvious in the absence of Noel. Force it inside and make the Cats try to stop them. Early on, it worked as Kentucky had no answer at all for UT's guards slashing to the rim time and time again. Unless someone on this team steps up as a defensive stopper, it will be a long rest of the season. As of right now, this is just hard to watch.
Ryan Harrow seen his first action of the day when Jarrod Polson picked up his second foul, trying to keep up with Trae Golden. The only bright spot in the first half was Julius Mays, when Tennessee hit a big shot, Mays would hit one of his own. His game has really improved over the last month or so and he will have to continue his improvement for this team to succeed at all, but Julius can't do it by himself as we seen in that abysmal first half.
At the 13:45 mark, Kentucky had committed it's 5th turnover (mostly unforced) while Tennessee had committed none. That has been something that has hurt this team the last 5 games or so. You cannot go on the road, give the ball up that easy and expect to win. We did learn that Skylar Mcbee has the worst nickname in college basketball, "Captain Mustache". This kid was annoying enough without announcers giving him a nickname like that. At the 12:28 mark UT led 22-10 thanks to the hot shooting of Mcbee helping UT go on a 15-2 run. Kentucky had no answer for anything the Vols did, they just looked completely lost on the floor.
Funniest thing I have ever seen in my life was Kentucky Assistant coach John Robic being kicked out of the game. I'm not sure what Robic did, but his hair may have had something to do with it. Absolute hilarity in the first half. Doug Shows, the official who tossed Robic from the game has called 8 technical fouls in the last three years, five of them have been called against Calipari or his assistants and players as he T'd up Cauley-Stein in the second half. You can thank Mr. Matt Jones of KSR for that little stat.
With 9:55 until halftime, Tennessee was on a 27-5 run and up 33-12. This is the worst I have seen this team play all season long. I read where someone said that this Tennessee game would be an indication of what's to come for the remainder of the season. If that's the case, it could be an extremely painful couple of months.
Another interesting stat, with 7:13 to go in the first, Tennessee attempted it's 11th free-throw while the Cats hadn't even sniffed the stripe at all. Kentucky finally attempted their first free-throw with 4:00 left in the half. It's a direct result of Kentucky's poor execution on offense and not driving the lane instead settling for contested jump shots.
While being down by the largest margin they have faced all year (35-14), Kentucky finally started to show some fight and heart. Guy's finally started fighting for rebounds and diving for loose balls, but it came too little too late for them to have any chance at all at cutting into the first half lead.
Kentucky headed to the locker room facing it's largest halftime deficit (50-26) during the Calipari era and the largest since being down 41-11 at Vandy in 2008 under Billy G. They also allowed Tennessee to score the most points in a first half than it had all season. I'm not sure what to say here, so we'll just go straight to the halftime stats...
HALFTIME STATS (IF YOU DARE TO READ THEM):
Polson: 4pts, 1reb
Harrow: 0pts, 2rebs
Poythress: 2pts, 2reb
Wiltjer: 8pts, 4rebs
Mays; 6pts, 1reb, 2asts
Goodwin: 4pts, 2 offensive fouls, 2rebs, 1ast
Cauley-Stein: 2pts, 1reb,
Hood: 1reb
Tennessee shot 56.7% from the field in the first half and went 4-4 from three point range. The bad part was, they rebounded 67% of their own misses. Oh how we miss Nerlens...
The only stat worth mentioning on Kentucky's side of things and it's not a good one, is the Cats only had 3 assists in the first half. When you couple that with 10 turnovers, being down 50-26 at the half is what you get.
The second half started much like the first, bad shot and no hustle when fighting for a rebound and letting UT get an easy layup on the other end. The Cats looked just as disorganized on offense and defense as they did in the first half. Turnovers, giving up on plays and blown defensive assignments sealed the Cats fate in this one. They have some major "soul searching" to do over the next couple of days. Otherwise, you can book your tickets for the NIT, man that almost killed me to type that last sentence.
Tomorrow, you will hear coaches being blamed or even the refs, don't buy it. I'm telling you this game is a result of selfish play on the part of every player that stepped on the floor besides maybe Polson and Cauley-Stein. Kyle Tucker of the Courier Journal overheard Calipari tell Archie Goodwin "I can't coach you". When you hear a coach say something like that, it's because he has done all he can do and your still not performing the way you should. That's on the individual player, not the coach or coaching staff.
At the 15:35 mark, Kentucky could manage only 4 points while UT scored 10 setting the score at 60-30. I knew when Noel went down it would be a blow to the team, but hell, I didn't think one man could make this big of a difference in a team that has as much talent as Kentucky does.
That leads me to question. If you destroy a team in the fashion Tennessee did Kentucky, do you as the opposing fan celebrate the win and feel your team accomplished something when you know if the "star player" had competed the outcome would have been drastically different? Do you as the opposing player feel you earned the right to pound your chest after a dunk when you know had Noel been on the floor, it would've been wiped away?
The only reason I ask those questions, is I've heard those same questions asked when Kentucky defeated a team and they had a player out with an injury. Yes a win is a win, but does it change the impressiveness of the win when the other team isn't at full strength? I know I prefer a team to be at full strength so they have no excuses.
The ONLY impressive to happen during this nightmare of a game was you could still hear the large contingency of Kentucky fans cheer every time a "Boy in Blue" hit a shot. If only the crowd at Rupp Arena had the same passion the fans have on the road, impressive.
A sentence I never that I would type, but couldn't wait to have the chance to do so. Jarrod Polson was Kentucky's leading scorer at the 10:14 mark with 11 points. IF everyone on this team played with the heart Polson, Cauley-Stein and Julius Mays shows every game, we wouldn't have been looking at a 70-42 deficit with 10:12 to go in the game.
When the score was 79-44 with 5:12 to go, it kinda made you wish there was a mercy rule. With every missed shot and every UT make, you could see the life being sucked out of this team. They just had the "deer caught in the headlights" look for the remainder of the game; it makes one wonder how this will affect them moving forward.
By the end of the night, Kentucky managed to rack up three technical fouls and lose by the largest margin ever to Tennessee 88-58. I'm not 100% positive, but I believe this is also the biggest deficit a John Calipari coached team has ever been defeated by.
I'll pass along the post game quotes and box score as soon as I get the text messages... Man that hurt.
No comments:
Post a Comment