Articles by Category
If only fixing the problems that the Kentucky basketball team could be as easy as deleting Twitter accounts, which is what at least four Wildcats apparently did after Saturday’s loss to Baylor.
"I think our team's chemistry is getting where we need it to be. Most of us deleted our Twitter apps and we feel like we have to stick with each other and with our family and stick with our coaches,” said freshman Willie Cauley-Stein, who did delete his account, on Monday as the Cats prepare for Tuesday night’s game with Samford.
Kentucky goes into the game unranked after tumbling out of the national rankings following last week’s loss at Notre Dame and the home loss to Baylor that snapped a 55-game home win streak.
Cauley-Stein says it’s hard for players to understand how difficult playing at UK can be.
“You don't think it's about the wins and losses. You think it's going to be hard because it's so upscale and you don't have room for error. As a freshman it's hard because you're going to make mistakes,” Cauley-Stein said.
Coach John Calipari has seen too many mistakes. Granted, UK shot poorly in both losses — and that can happen. But the Cats got only six points off 21 offensive rebounds against Baylor. They didn’t get key rebounds and loose balls. At Notre Dame, they were knocked around and forced to play Notre Dame’s slow pace.
Maybe those are things the players talked about in a team meeting Sunday that Calipari admitted Monday before practice that he knew nothing about.
“It was a very tough loss for us (Saturday). The fact that we could have won makes it even tougher for me,” freshman Archie Goodwin said. “I'm a competitor, so I like to win. With that loss being the first loss at home in about four years, that makes it especially frustrating. We have to learn from it and not let it happen again."
"We talked about it the next day. We had a team meeting where we talked about different things. It was a players only meeting that we called to just try and figure out what we are going to do because something has to change."
He’s right, but it sounds like he is learning after citing a “lack of competitive spirit” from UK in Saturday’s loss.
“Our coaches did a great job of preparing us. At the end of the day, if we don't compete, it doesn't mean anything and that's something we haven't been doing as a team,” Goodwin said.
He’s right. That’s why as great as Anthony Davis was last year when he had perhaps the best single season in college basketball history, UK could be missing Michael Kidd-Gilchrist even more this season. He had that unteachable will to win. He found a way to make plays, inspire teammates. He never played without emotion, a problem this team has had way too often in seven games.
Calipari knows his team lacks leadership — and understands why.
“You have some guys that cannot lead. They’ve negated that ability. You have other guys maybe don’t think they’re playing well enough to lead, and you’ve had other guys that probably don’t want to work that hard to lead. So, you’ve got a little combination. Eventually someone will step up,” Calipari said.
But it needs to be soon. UK starts a stretch of games with Samford, Portland, Lipscomb and Marshall from now through Dec. 22. After that, comes a matchup at Louisville Dec. 29. Considering the rivalry that always exists, the Pitino-Calipari dynamic and UK coming off a national title season that included a win over Louisville in the Final Four, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the atmosphere will be in the YUM Center Dec. 29.
Maybe that will change if UK’s young team develops a sense of urgency, something last year’s team had in close games. Calipari says a friend called to tell him that this team lacks that.
“There’s no desperation, sense of urgency, toughness, diving. And you know what? We’re going to have to do it in practice. If they’re not playing that way, I’m going to tell you,” the UK coach said. “I’ve got a great group of kids. I really do. They’re young and they’re not as skilled as you’d like them to be, but they’re nice. They’re going to do what we ask them to do. I think it was last year I told you that I hope I’m asking them to do the right things. Well, obviously from where this team has gone to the practices before Maryland and Duke where I went back and said, ‘Let’s work on situations’ – situations don’t matter down 15, 12. They don’t matter.
“And so we needed to just keep focusing on cementing the habits of how hard you have to play and playing through comfort levels and all those kind of things. That’s not them. That’s me. Like I told you, I’m still learning about the team and what it needs, what it needs from me, what we’ve got to instill in it. And it’s going to (take) time.”
KSR Twitter Feed
vBulletin Message