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LEXINGTON — Listening to John Calipari after Tuesday’s game against Vanderbilt, it would be easy to assume that No. 1 Kentucky rolled to a third straight lopsided victory.
He praised player after player for doing this or that right during the game. He criticized very little about his team.
Yet the Wildcats (18-0) had to scramble to hold off pesky Vanderbilt 65-57 despite blocking 11 shots and taking 20 more free throws than the Commodores, who are now just 1-4 in league play.
“We'll learn from this. We didn't offensive rebound. This team, they rebounded with us. But it was a good win. I'm happy,” said Calipari.
Vanderbilt did what few teams have done this year — it dared UK to win with its inside game. Because of UK’s recent hot shooting from 3-point range, the Commodores didn’t give Devin Booker, Tyler Ulis or Aaron Harrison open 3-point looks often. Kentucky got shot six 3-pointers, and made four. Fortunately for UK, two of the makes were by Harrison — who else — late in the game when UK needed them most.
He had 14 second-half points after going scoreless in the first half. His brother, Andrew, had just one point in the first half but got four points and two more assists the second half.
“I think he played so well in the second half. That's who he is,” Calipari said about Aaron Harrison. “And I thought his brother played that well, too. They both played with unbelievable energy. They were aggressive and attacked. They played smart. They didn't try to make crazy plays. They made easy plays that they could make. But Aaron basically threw dagger after dagger.
“I thought Marcus Lee played really well. Willie (Cauley-Stein) did what Willie does. Then he took that(baseline) jumper (late in the game) and I know we all looked at each other like what in the world. But he's been practicing that. That's something that's been working on. He made his free throws.”
Lee provided six straight needed points in the second half and probably had his most efficient, energetic game of the year with seven points, six rebounds, two blocks and one steal in only 12 minutes.
Cauley-Stein was just 2-for-5 from the field but did go 2-for-2 at the foul line. He had 10 rebounds, the one reason UK did at least win the rebounding battle 33-30 against the Commodores.
Dakari Johnson and Karl-Anthony Towns had trouble finishing against Vanderbilt’s Damian Jones, who has 11 points, seven rebounds, three blocks (all against Johnson) and two steals. Johnson finished 3-for-9 from the field — two makes came on fast-break chances — and had 10 points and four rebounds. Towns was just 1-for-4 from the field — his only basket came in the game’s first 30 seconds — but had a career-high seven blocks and four rebounds.
“Dakari in the first half was — you just can't play way. In the second half he played. We had some guys not play well. But that's what happens when you have a lot of guys. You just kind of scramble until you figure out ‘OK, who’s got it going.’ That's what I did in the second half and I just ran with the guys that had it going,” Calipari said. “They had three blocks and they were all Dakari's shots. He's still turning into the defense and shooting the ball in front of the guy. Like you can't shoot, you got to — if you're going to your left you got to shoot it here. If you're going to your right you got to shoot it here. You can't turn and that's what he keeps doing. But he made free throws, he did some good stuff.”
Again, the happy Calipari who was not going to get bent out of shape over a win against an outmanned team that depends even more on freshmen than UK.
He did finally admit that Johnson wasn’t ready to play in the first half. He wasn’t alone, though.
“He (Johnson) wasn't in the frame of mind you have to be to play. The energy wasn't there. Shots blocked again. Everybody's going crazy on defense and he's standing there. Boom, you're out. Second half, he went in and did it,” Calipari said. “Aaron was kind of the same way. I just I said I'm not settling for that.
“Look, I have a vision of each of these kids, the best version of themselves. But they have to play extremely hard, they got to play with unbelievable energy and some emotion. They all know the plays that we're trying to get them to make. And they're capable of doing it. But they're not machines, they're not computers, but I'm not, you know, I'm not backing up. I know what these guys are capable of and I'm holding them to that standard.”
Yet even though Kentucky didn’t meet that standard Tuesday after jumping in front 12-5 and then basically losing its focus, he wasn’t going to be overly critical of his team because he wants UK to keep moving forward toward a March peak — and he knows a much more difficult game awaits UK at South Carolina Saturday.
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