Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s loss at South Carolina
Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 79-62 loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks at Colonial Life Arena on Tuesday night.
1. Kentucky got punched and didn’t punch back
Way back in October, back when John Calipari assembled his highly regarded, highly skilled group of basketball-playing freshmen, one question about the current group of Cats is what happens when an older, veteran team hits UK’s rookies square in the mouth.
Tuesday night brought a test case. A test the Cats failed. Lamont Paris’ Gamecocks were the more aggressive, more physical team in this SEC clash. The home team was tougher, grittier, more determined, more sure of what it wanted to do and when it wanted to do it.
“They outmuscled us,” Calipari said afterward. “I guess people are going to watch that tape and say that’s how you got to play them. So we’ve got to protect ourselves.”
Unable to get out on the fast break, or play through bumps in the halfcourt, the Cats scored a season-low 25 points in the first half and a season-low 62 for the game. (Remember, before Tuesday, UK was the nation’s top scoring team at 91.6 points per game.). Kentucky ended up with just seven assists after being credited with 27 in last Saturday’s 105-96 win over Georgia. For the game, Kentucky shot 40.3% from the floor, and made but four of 13 3-point shots.
“Coach told us, ‘We weren’t moving the ball. They were punking us and things like that,” UK guard Antonio Reeves said. “They’ve got a lot of veteran guards on their team that know what’s going on. We got to figure out how we can get our freshmen up to par.”
Because Cal is right. Everyone around the SEC, if not the country, is going to watch this tape.
2. Kentucky’s defense is a real problem
South Carolina came into the game ranked 180th nationally in 3-point field goal percentage at 33.2. The Gamecocks exited the night — after being swarmed by their fans that rushed the court — hitting 11-for-24 from 3-point land for 45.8%.
Now you can say, as Calipari likes to say, every poor-shooting team suddenly hits shots against Kentucky. Everyone’s Super Bowl. But so many of South Carolina’s shots were wide-open shots. Especially 3-point shots. The Gamecocks worked the ball around to the tune of 20 assists on 29 made field goals.
“The ball was poppin’,” Paris said afterward, his team now 16-3 overall and 4-2 in the SEC. “I thought the ball was moving all over the place.”
Paris also said this: “I thought there were some matchups we could take advantage of.”
He mentioned Carolina beefy center Josh Gray against UK’s Big Z, Zvonimir Ivisic. But the South Carolina guards and wings often appeared to catch UK’s young guards flat-footed on defense, turning those situations into drives to the hoop, or execution on the pick-and-roll, or dribble drives with kick outs for open 3s.
South Carolina averaged 1.241 points per possession — compared to UK’s 0.996 — against a Kentucky team that gave up 61 points in the second half against Georgia and entered Tuesday night 75th in kenpom’s adjusted defensive efficiency.
This team has to improve defensively. There’s time. But the clock is ticking.
3. Kentucky is now 1-2 in SEC road games
We said it before. We’ll say it again. Stock up on the antacids. Life on the road in the SEC is never easy. That’s true even for a team as talented as Kentucky, who after Tuesday’s loss is now 1-2 in SEC road games. The one win was a two-point triumph at Florida. The losses have come both large (the 17-point defeat Tuesday) and small (97-92 overtime loss at Texas A&M).
True, Arkansas is a mess. Ranked 14th in the preseason AP Top 25, Eric Musselman’s club is currently 1-4 in the SEC and 10-8 overall after last Saturday’s 77-64 loss to this same South Carolina team. The Hogs can start to turn their season around if they can find a way to beat Kentucky on Saturday at Bud Walton Arena.
“This was a great lesson for us,” said Calipari during his postgame press conference on Tuesday.
And that’s true. No one at South Carolina cared about Big Z’s dazzling Saturday performance. South Carolina didn’t care that the Cats moved up two spots to No. 6 in the latest poll or that people were starting to talk of Calipari’s club having championship potential. If an SEC team gets Kentucky on its home floor, it believes it can beat Kentucky on its home floor.
Arkansas will be no different. Musselman’s past teams have played a physical style and we are sure to see some of that Saturday in Fayettville. How will Kentucky react on both ends of the floor? That’s the question that has to be answered.
Said Reeves, “We’ve got to punch back.”
No. 6 Kentucky suffers a surprising loss at South Carolina. And it wasn’t close.
How did Big Z do in game two? Zvonimir Ivisic cools off in first game away from home.
Box score from No. 6 Kentucky basketball’s 79-62 SEC loss at South Carolina
Shot charts from No. 6 Kentucky basketball’s 79-62 defeat at South Carolina
