Towns shows physical play in win over Louisville

By: LARRY VAUGHT


LOUISVILLE — There was a time earlier this season that Kentucky coach John Calipari worried about how physical Karl-Anthony Towns might be.

Against No. 4 Louisville here Saturday, Towns showed he was ready to be the physical interior player that Calipari wants. The freshman had 10 points and nine rebounds in the 58-50 win and eight of those points came in the second half after junior Willie Cauley-Stein got in foul trouble.

“It was very physical. It reminded me a lot of playing overseas. It was very physical, but they let a lot go,” said Towns. “It was one of those games you had to keep playing through the fouls. Don’t worry about it. Don’t complain. Just keep playing.

“You’re not always going to get everything. You have to keep playing. If they call a whistle, then be glad they called it and at the other time be upset. It’s fine. Just keep playing through it. This is one of those games you could have let little things like that affect us and it would have hurt us long term.”

Towns didn’t care if some thought the game looked ugly because of the low score.

“It’s always about the W (win). It’s never about how we look,” Towns said. “It’s more about the W. There’s a lot of times we’re going to be as basketball players — it’s a process. It’s something that we have to know.

“Sometimes we’re not always going to look good. We’re not always going to look the brightest and the sharpest as we always are. As long as we come out with the W, I know that we have that W on our schedule and also we can move on to the next game and fix what we need to fix.”

Kentucky did not get to the foul line in the first half, but Towns went 4-for-5 at the line the second half when UK did shoot 14 free throws, including six in the final minute.

“I think the refs, just like us, were trying to feel each other out. It’s one of those games you don’t want to go so quick to making calls, everybody’s physical,” Towns said. “It was a game that was always going to be physical from the get. They just had to feel it out.

“I think the refs – some people won’t believe I’m saying this – but I think they did a great job of trying to control the game. And also, just making sure they were being as fair as possible. Some refs let you play a little more. Today, the refs were great. They let us play a little more. They wanted to set the tone early, called a lot of fouls in the beginning, but I’ve seen at the end they let the physicality play out and knew how everyone was going to play.”