Briggs impressed by Kentucky

By: LARRY VAUGHT

LEXINGTON — Georgetown College coach Chris Briggs didn’t use the 40-0 terminology for Kentucky, but he left no doubt about how impressed he was with Kentucky.

“I knew they were good coming into this game, but sitting out there watching it in front of their eyes, on the sideline, honestly I don’t see how they’re going to get beat this year,” said Briggs after UK’s 121-52 exhibition victory Sunday night. “I don’t like to say that because I know people have off nights, and things can happen and this-and-that, and injuries and things like that, but if they play like they did tonight, they’re an NBA playoff team.”

That might be a bit of an overestimation, but UK definitely overwhelmed a good NAIA team starting with a 16-0 blitz midway of the first half and had seven players in double figures even though no one played more than 19 minutes.

“We had the same problems that the rest of the country probably will have the rest of this year. Those guys are unreal. I told the guys in the locker room, they could have beaten some NBA teams tonight, there’s no question in my mind,” Briggs said.

Kentucky coach John Calipari isn’t so sure.

He recalled a time at Massachusetts when his six-man rotation beat No. 1 Arkansas, a team using 10 players, soundly. He recalled a game in Detroit in 1996 when his UMass team beat eventual national champion Kentucky and its talent-laden roster.

“We're going to hit some bumps in the road. If I continue to do this (platoon) and we play a team that's playing six guys, I've been there. I remember a team at UMass, playing 10 guys, number one in the country and doing all that, and I played six and we beat them by 30. Who was that? Arkansas,” Calipari said. “Then my last year, Kentucky played 10‑11, they had nine NBA players on that roster and we beat them in Detroit with six guys, and they pressed and ran and trapped and we beat them.

“So there's going to be games that playing this many is going to be hard. You know why? Because I'm expecting 10 guys to play well every night out and that's not going to happen. No, I don't, I'm not. I'm expecting them to play hard and compete at a high level every night out. I think I can expect that. But it's still they're not machines.”

Briggs may not agree with that.

“Well defensively, they’re so long, they’re so athletic. I mean, you guys saw it, sometimes our guys were getting in there, getting to the rim, and in our league, they’re finishing that, getting dunks and layups,” Briggs said. “But defensively, you can’t win one-on-one, you have to move the ball a few times and then get reversals and attack closeouts, because if you just try to go one-on-one, they’re just going to block it, it’s ridiculous.

“It’s like going in there, I don’t know how to describe it. Defensively, they’re going to be a problem for a whole lot of people because they’re so long, so athletic at every position, all the way down to the guard spot. I was really impressed with their intensity, UK’s intensity, defensively in the press, getting after us, and making it hard for us to do anything.”

He said defending Kentucky is no easier after watching the Cats go 46-for-72 from the field with 32 assists and having seven players score in double figures.

“You better recruit better first. I don’t know what to tell you, we did everything we could, we went zone, we tried man, we tried trapping the post, we tried it all,” Briggs said. “It’s going to take an extremely off night and an extremely great night out of somebody who has big-time NBA talent as well to get those guys.”

Calipari joked that many of UK’s assists were “just throwing the ball to the rim” for easy dunks. He even had his own  NBA reference.

“But when you're Willie Cauley(-Stein), and you're 7-foot tall, I don't care who is out there. If (former NBA all-star) Kareem (Abdul Jabbar) is out there, we're probably still trying to throw that pass,” Calipari said.