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LEXINGTON — Once again Kentucky seemed determined to prove that it is an average basketball team, not one worthy of making a late-season push to be a factor in the NCAA Tournament — or even make sure it is in the tournament.
The Cats squandered most of a comfortable lead as they have done several times this season before holding off LSU here 75-70 Saturday that left even coach John Calipari grasping for positives.
“We have to get this thing right, right now. You saw, I mean, we are still not — you’ve got to get out of your own self’s way, so you can bust through,” said Calipari. “In basketball or any sport, it’s not play to play. You have to have amnesia. You miss a shot, amnesia. Forget it. You turn it over, amnesia. You can’t let if affect the next three plays. That’s what we’re doing.”
He’s right, and it’s way too late in the season for that still to be happening.
It seems like when the light comes on for one player, it goes off for two more.
This time it was Alex Poythress who “got it” right. He had a 20 points and 12 rebounds in 30 minutes. He got the game-clinching rebound and went 5-for-6 at the foul line in the final two minutes. He also got a key steal.
“Phenomenal. He has just been picking it up and getting more vocal,” teammate Nerlens Noel said. “I thought that the key to his success tonight was the previous practices getting vocal and having a high energy level.”
If that’s so, why has it taken so long to get back to the form he had earlier in the season when he had four straight games of 20 or more points. In five previous Southeastern Conference games, he had been in double figures just one.
The perplexing thing about Saturday is that UK had six players with eight or more points and four in double figures. They won the rebounding battle 39-26. They shot 51.9 percent (27-for-52) from the field. Yet Kentucky had to hang on to beat a team that is now 1-5 in league play.
The Tigers fought back by scoring 20 points off 16 UK turnovers and going 8-for-20 from 3-point range. They were also 12-for-15 at the foul line while UK missed nine of 28 attempts.
But the biggest problem UK continues to have is the “buy in” that Calipari has talked about from day one. He just can’t seem to get every player doing what he wants. He likes what Kyle Wiltjer has done the last four games and praised Nerlens Noel (10 points, eight rebounds, six blocks, two assists, one steal) for his continuous effort.
“We have got some other guys that I'm just, I can't get them to understand, you've got to change your attitude and you've got to change your habit. Now, bad attitude doesn't mean*— or an attitude doesn't mean you're bad and you're talking back and all that. It may be an attitude toward work. It may be an attitude toward being a teammate. It may be an attitude toward accepting your role, all kind of things,” Calipari said.
“But when you know, I can change my attitude, and I can change my habits, and that will change who I am and what I'm about. I'm just trying to keep telling these guys that, and have fun playing. They are playing like they are afraid to lose, and I'm telling them, I'm not afraid to lose. And if you win, who is going to get the credit? They will.
“And I already told them, if we lose, who is going to take responsibility? I've been here four years now. I will take responsibility. I'm not putting it on a player. So just play. If we lose, it's on me. If you win, it's about you.”
Calipari said his players are not selfish — a statement many UK fans don’t want to believe. It’s just they have numerous habits to break.
“It's nice to walk out of here with a win. It would have been an ugly L (loss). We gave, just like every other game, we are giving people a chance to beat us,” Calipari said. “But we should be gapping the game, but that's who we are.”
Is that hard for players to accept being that team that can’t put games away?
“We just have to mentally stay focused through that and just not really turn over the ball at crucial times,” Noel said. “We will get better at it, just about mentally staying focused through the long stretch of a game.”
Will they? So far, UK has had major problems focusing for 40 minutes.
“I don’t think we are worried that we can’t be a good team,” guard Archie Goodwin (15 points, five rebounds) said. “It will eventually come together like we want as long as we keep working in practice like we have been.”
Maybe, but it better start now as UK has to play at Mississippi, a veteran and physical team on Tuesday, and then at Texas A&M Saturday and the Aggies have already won at Rupp Arena.
“We know what lies ahead. We know what we can do,” Goodwin said. “We just can’t worry about what anybody else says. We just have to listen to Coach and get better and I know we can.”
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