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  • Jones: Cats played like a team

    By: LARRY VAUGHT

    Boston University coach Joe Jones had his team pay more attention to how Buffalo played against Kentucky than what No. 5 Kansas did in a 32-point loss to No. 1 UK.

    “At least that is what I told the players that we were more like Buffalo,” said Jones after UK pulled away late for an 89-65 win that was much closer than the final score indicated.

    Jones, a former Villanova assistant coach, said he had waited 22 years to play in Rupp Arena.

    “What a great atmosphere,” said Jones.

    Boston’s zone gave UK trouble — the Cats were 8-for-21 overall from 3-point range an donly 4-for-12 the first half — early but Jones knew that would change.

    “They are so long and deep, that they are going to get comfortable and then you are going to make some adjustments. I thought they did a great job in the second half,” Jones said. “They got three lob dunks and they could throw it in each time down the floor. I knew at some point they were going to be able to figure it out. Then we were going to make adjustments and you only have so many tricks up your sleeve to keep you in it when you are playing a team this good. ”

    Jones said the storyline should not be that “BU hung around” against UK.

    “The hardest thing to do is when you have so many players you have to get them to play as a team. Even though it was a close game, they were playing as a team. You can win big playing that way,” Jones said. “You can’t look at the score and say that BU hung around and it was a five-point game at halftime. Those guys played as a unit the whole time. That is the reason why they were able to break it open and all the credit goes to them. My hat goes off to Coach Cal, and that is not an easy thing to do.”

    Jones said his team could not get enough defensive stops the second half to generate any transition scores like it did in the first half.

    “We did not come up with any stops. If you watch the first half, we were able to create enough stops to get points in transition. We are a terrific 3-point shooting team. We have a lot of guys that can shoot them. In the second half, we just didn't come up with enough stops. They were able to pick apart the zone,” Jones said.

    “Then they got into that press and we didn't attack the press well enough. We couldn't generate shots that way in the half court. They weren’t going to let us run anything. We had to drive the ball to score. If they stepped up we would have to kick it. That is not the way we want to play in terms of one on one, but we really didn't have any chance to run anything. They are too big and long. We have never seen that type of pressure before.”

    Jones said he had not seen a team with this much talent, including when he faced one of Duke’s best teams when he was coaching at Villanova.

    “Duke had a tremendous team. They were loaded, but they did not have the size, length or girth of this team,” Jones said. “I have never seen a team this bit and long and their willingness to play together is unreal. They have a chance to get better, and that is the scary thing.”
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