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After Saturday's win at Alabama, Kentucky coach John Calipari said a team without a post presence is a fraud.
Well, fraud or not, UK managed to beat Mississippi State 80-74 here Tuesday night after almost blowing a 20-point lead with basically no post presence.
— Alex Poythress, who had a career-high 25 points at Alabama, had six points -- all in the final 10 minutes -- and eight rebounds.
— Marcus Lee had two points and nine rebounds before fouling out.
— Skal Labissiere had five points and four rebounds, better than his recent totals.
— Derek Willis had eight points and two boards but was blistered by Calipari for his lack of defense. "See, people see a shot made and think, well, the guy's OK. But when you watch the tape, it's just like, 'oh, my God, you score six and you give up 12,'" Calipari said.
Jamal Murray had 22 points, 11 in each half, while Tyler Ulis had 21 and Isaiah Briscoe 14 to help Kentucky hold off the Bulldogs.
What did Calipari think of not having a post presence?
"I feel excited. I am happy. I did two backflips on the way in here," Calipari said to open his postgame press conference.
He said the team needs junior guard Dominique Hawkins, who is out with an ankle sprain.
"We need Dom back badly. We're playing some guys that don't deserve to be in there, and then you end up playing them a lot of minutes," Calipari said. "The other thing, we have to do something when we have guys no-show us, we've got to figure out how we win anyway and how do we play then? Like I said, we were up 18, 19, whatever it was, when they weren't playing well, and we figured out a way.
"But give them (State) credit, they didn't stop playing. If they hadn't turned it over as much as they did in a couple of stretches, they'd probably beat us."
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