Nation's only unbeaten team - Kentucky

By: LARRY VAUGHT

LEXINGTON — It was the perfect scenario for Kentucky.

The No. 1 Wildcats shot a season-high 58.5 percent from the field, put a stifling defense on Alabama and breezed to a 70-55 victory here Saturday night to improve their record to 21-0 — the third best start in program history. And now they are also the nation’s only remaining unbeaten team after Virginia’s home loss to Duke.

Of course, Kentucky coach John Calipari joked that both the South Carolina and Princeton women were undefeated, too.

“The this, the question is how good can we be,” said Calipari. “I don’t know yet. I am trying to get these guys to go to the next level. I am trying to prod and push them. I want to see how great we can be.”

He noted that UK had already had a couple of great games against Kansas and UCLA along with a few not so good against Columbia and Buffalo.

“I imagine we will have a league game or two before we finish that we will be down at half and see if we can come back,” Calipari said. “We are playing every game to win. But I told them last night if we lose we are 20-1. If you lose in March, the season is over. Right now it is just about finding out how good we can be and that’s all we are doing.”

Calipari had teams at Memphis and Massachusetts have long winning streaks broken after they were unbeaten and each came back to play its best in March.

“I would rather them win them all, but if they don’t, they don’t. Just as long as they are getting better,” Calipari said.

Kentucky settled this issue early with the kind of energetic start that coach John Calipari has pleaded for often this season. The Wildcats were on top 15-5 eight minutes into the game thanks to six quick points from Karl-Anthony Towns, who was brilliant in the first half with 12 points when he didn’t miss a shot and not so good the second half when he didn’t score or get a rebound before fouling out.

“I thought the first 10 minutes they shot about 70 percent and we had nine turnovers. That was the difference in the game,” Alabama coach Anthony Grant said.

Alabama had no chance to seriously threaten UK after that early surge and it was just a matter of what margin UK would win by — and if Duke could do enough to leave UK as the nations only unbeaten team. Kentucky’s defense was UK-like as this was the 16th time this season a team has failed to score more than 55 points against UK.

Want another measure of how dominant has UK been this season? The Wildcats have trailed only 103 minutes, 43 seconds out of a possible 855 minutes this season.

Here were just some of the things to like from this game:

— Freshman guard Devin Booker continued to amaze. He had 11 points and was 3-for-4 from 3-point range. He’s now made 25 of his last 38 treys, a ridiculous 65.8 percent mark.

“He takes pressure off all of us when you have a knockdown shooter like that,” Aaron Harrison, who had 10 points on 4-for-11 shooting, said.

“I thought he played good. I got upset when we threw a ball to him in the corner. Instead of driving, he passed. I told him if he was going to play that way, I would take him out,” Calipari said.

— Kentucky had just five turnovers, and one was on a rare charge by Willie Cauley-Stein. That was just one off the season-best mark against Columbia in early December.

— Cauley-Stein, who had scored just two points in each of the previous two games, had 12 points on 4-for-4 shooting from the field and 4-for-6 at the foul line. He also had four rebounds and one assist.

“I like the fact we went at Willie and made him do some thing offensively and I thought he did good,” Calipari said. “I am telling Willie not just to settle for being a defensive player. Score around the goal. You’ve got a jump hook. He’s long and athletic. He is big. Just jump over and score. Relish that, push me. That is what I want.”

— Marcus Lee was 4-for-5 from the field and had eight points and five rebounds.

“I thought Marcus Lee was good the whole game,” Calipari said before noting that he had a “couple of one-handed rebounds” that are “sins” in the UK program.

But there were not many sins on this night for a team that shot 58.5 percent overall and 46.7 percent from 3-point range, had 14 turnovers to just five assists (UK had a 20-3 advantage in points off turnovers) and dominated scoring in the paint 28-14.

There was also no looking ahead at a perfect season or being the only unbeaten team left.

“It means nothing right now,” Harrison said of the unbeaten mark. “Neither of us had won or lost anything yet.”