January 12, 201214 yr Coach Cal tweet: UKCoachCalipari John Calipari I think the game was a sellout too. I'll have to check with @jerrytipton to see if I'm wrong about that though.
January 12, 201214 yr Deceptive score in that the game was much closer than the final margin. A road win is a road win, however. Say what you want but I said befor the game they would win by 14 and that it would come late in the second half. I knew this was another road test to a team they would likely underestimate early.
January 12, 201214 yr That is incorrect. He moved into 5th place on UK's single season blocked shot list with 78. Perry Stevenson is 5th on the all-time list with 160. Source: Tom Leach, should of cited it.
January 12, 201214 yr Coach Cal tweet: UKCoachCalipari John Calipari I think the game was a sellout too. I'll have to check with @jerrytipton to see if I'm wrong about that though. Saw that last night & it made me :lol:
January 12, 201214 yr My main thought during the first half of this game, well really most of the was... If we are having this much trouble with Auburn's 2-3 zone, what in the world are we going to do if we face Syracuse in the tournament (yes I'm looking way ahead). But I really don't like our zone offense much at all. I'd imagine if someone ask Coach Cal about it, he would say they haven't worked on it much yet. I think we are going to be seeing a lot more of it the rest of the way. Teams don't have the athleticism to guard us man to man. I really liked the hustle and passion that it seemed Jones was playing with last night!
January 12, 201214 yr I just think this will be a typical road of almost all conference road games this year. You'll see a lot of zone and switching defenses, trying to slow the game down. If UK doesn't shoot well from outside then its going to be a knockout grind it out game, kind of like what you saw last night. MJ, you definitely bring up a good point because that zone offense last night was awful. They need to move the ball around a lot better and Jones needs to play better in the middle of that zone. Instead, he was out on the perimeter a lot.
January 12, 201214 yr Games like this show why it's dumb to pursue a strategy of scheduling all of your non-conference games at home and avoiding true road tests. Didn't you give Cal crap for saying UK was locked into too many non conference games? Part of that reasoning was that they way they're currently lined up, he got UofL, UNC, and the SEC/Big East challenge all at home this year. Last year they played at Portland, UNC, and UofL (SEC/Big East was a neutral site format last year). Not to mention all the neutral site games (3 this year not counting UALR at Freedom hall, and 4 last year), so your "at home" part doesn't really stand up.
January 12, 201214 yr Regarding the game... blah.... The positives are that they finished strong, and seemed to figure out how to get it inside. Hopefully this was a wake up call for Saturday.
January 12, 201214 yr One thing that does drive me crazy about this team (although a lot of big programs have the same problem) is that they rarely block out on the defensive end. The turn and react to the ball using their athleticism. If they put a body on somebody and then go to the ball, they would give up 4-5 less offensive rebounds a game.
January 12, 201214 yr This UK teams reminds me a lot of the 2006 UConn team. Really talented, but always plays to the level of their competition.
January 12, 201214 yr I just think this will be a typical road of almost all conference road games this year. You'll see a lot of zone and switching defenses, trying to slow the game down. If UK doesn't shoot well from outside then its going to be a knockout grind it out game, kind of like what you saw last night. MJ, you definitely bring up a good point because that zone offense last night was awful. They need to move the ball around a lot better and Jones needs to play better in the middle of that zone. Instead, he was out on the perimeter a lot. :thumb:
January 12, 201214 yr This UK teams reminds me a lot of the 2006 UConn team. Really talented, but always plays to the level of their competition. Which really ended up biting them. Not a bad comparison at all.
January 12, 201214 yr This UK teams reminds me a lot of the 2006 UConn team. Really talented, but always plays to the level of their competition. I said this last night, and that is extremely frustrating for a coach and fans.
January 12, 201214 yr My main thought during the first half of this game, well really most of the was... If we are having this much trouble with Auburn's 2-3 zone, what in the world are we going to do if we face Syracuse in the tournament (yes I'm looking way ahead). But I really don't like our zone offense much at all. I'd imagine if someone ask Coach Cal about it, he would say they haven't worked on it much yet. I think we are going to be seeing a lot more of it the rest of the way. Teams don't have the athleticism to guard us man to man. I really liked the hustle and passion that it seemed Jones was playing with last night! MJ, you definitely bring up a good point because that zone offense last night was awful. They need to move the ball around a lot better and Jones needs to play better in the middle of that zone. Instead, he was out on the perimeter a lot. I was thinking the same thing and that sums up my thoughts on the game entirely. Last night was all about the zone. Of course you can factor in road environment, overlooking oppnent, not use to traveling before games (jet lag), etc. but in my heart of hearts I think it was the zone that gave them the most trouble. As MJ said I think the biggest problem is they probably haven't worked on their zone offense as much and they will have to moving forward. Calipari has so many things he tries to teach and put in that a lot of stuff gets put off and doesn't get worked on. Generally for Calipari teams the first part of camp and first part of the season is spent working on defense. Then they start getting into sets and DDM concepts, then into situational concepts, press breaking, etc. Now that a lot of that stuff has been installed I look for them to spend more time working on zone offense because Cal is going to know they are going to see it a lot for the rest of the year. Only way to get a team out of a zone is to beat a zone and until late last night Kentucky just wasn't beating the zone. A wins a win, I'll take the result on the road. Still a lot of things to work on but the ceiling is so high for this team and they are so far away from their actual potential. They have only lost one game playing at about 70% of capability, if they can ever hit that stride and shift into that extra gear this team is going to be hard to put out. In the tournament though it just takes one bad effort to get bounced so Kentucky finding its flow and consistency is a must before Conference Tourney play.
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