Immanuel Quickley’s confidence ‘through the roof’ in Blue-White Game
The feel-good vibe that is synonymous with Kentucky’s Blue-White Game was present in Rupp Arena on Friday night.
Immanuel Quickley breathed life into Kentucky Coach John Calipari’s comments him about being reborn as a sophomore. Quickley played with newfound purpose and effectiveness. He finished with a game-high 25 points.
“The kid’s confidence is through the roof right now,” teammate Nate Sestina said.
Quickley said his confidence grows “each and every day.”
It shows itself as “kind of a swagger,” he said. “Not an arrogance. But you just know the work you put in is finally coming through for you.” Quickley, who averaged 5.2 points and 18.5 minutes as a freshman, credited summer workouts with an NBA player as a key for this emergence.
“I got to work out and play one-on-one with Markelle Fultz,” he said. “So that was pretty cool.”
Quickley said Fultz, the first overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, was his workout partner, his competitor and his advisor.
“He’s in the NBA, and he’s been through a lot,” Quickley said. “So he knows the ins and outs of the league.
“He told me he’s going to be watching me this year. Be aggressive. Have high confidence because that goes a long way.”
A reporter asking if he could beat Tyrese Maxey in a race allowed Quickley to put his confidence level in a context.
“I don’t think I’d lose a race to Usain Bolt,” he said.
Sestina shoots well
Sestina, the graduate transfer from Bucknell, lived up to the billing as a “stretch-four” who could make three-point shots. En route to 22 points, he made four of eight shots from beyond the arc (the other UK players made only eight of 33).
Sestina, too, spoke of greater confidence.
“When I first got here, I was a little shaky,” he said. “I was nervous about playing with these guys. Whether or not I’d be able to click and mesh with them.”
Calipari lauded Sestina’s play and wished aloud that more teammates could match the transfer’s intensity.
“I love playing basketball,” Sestina said. “You get to play in front of 22 (or) 23,000 people every day. That’s a motivator by itself. Playing for UK is a motivator by itself. Then playing for my family and playing for myself and playing for the name in front and in back of the jersey.”
Nick Richards, whose struggles in his first two UK seasons endeared him to fans, posted a double-double: 20 points and 11 rebounds. Maybe more tellingly, he committed only two fouls in the first 32-plus minutes.
EJ Montgomery drew oohs with a one-hand rebound dunk. Exceptions can be made to Calipari’s insistence that rebounds be grabbed with two hands.
Preview to season?
How well these performances will translate into the regular season remains to be seen. There can be doubt given past Blue-White superlatives: Isaiah Briscoe’s 39 points in 2016, Skal Labissiere’s 18 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks in 2015 and Jarrod Polson’s dunk during one of these games in his four UK seasons.
When asked how well a Blue-White Game performance served as a preview for regular-season play, Calipari said, “You don’t know, but here is what it does. The kids smell popcorn. There’s numbers on their backs and there’s people in the seats. Now we have some guys that missed a lot of shots. They have been making shots, but uh oh, smell the popcorn, numbers on your back, people in the seats. It’s a little different.”
The first half suggested that Kentucky will need to work on its perimeter shooting. Other than Sestina, the Cats struggled to make three-point shots.
Sestina made three of seven shots from the new three-point distance of 22 feet and one and three-quarter inches (or about 17 inches farther from the basket). The other UK players made only four of 18 three-point shots.
“Johnny (Juzang) missed all four, and we are expecting him to make shots,” Calipari said of the freshman. “I told him he’s flat-footed. You can’t shoot them flat-footed. You have to jump. You have to shoot the same way every time and that means go meet the ball and let it go.”
Actually, Juzang missed all six of his three-point shots. Calipari also referenced Tyrese Maxey making one of four three-point shots. “So when you talk those two being 1-for — whatever they were, that’s not good for us,” the UK coach said.
Even with the struggles from three-point range, Kentucky had no problem scoring. The familiar action to the basket which has been the signature UK approach in Calipari’s time as coach was in evidence. Forty of the game’s first 63 points were scored from the paint. By halftime, the totals were 52 of 85 points. By game’s end, the Cats had scored 98 of the game’s 161 points from the paint.
The White team won 81-80.
Empty seats
Although the Blue-White Game provided a first extended look at another Kentucky team featuring many new faces, it did not draw a big crowd. The many empty spaces in the upper arena suggested that Lexington Center Corp. would have had room — at least on this night — to replace bleachers with couches rather than chairback seats.
Calipari accentuated the positive with the announced attendance of 13,574.
“If you go around the country and say it’s your home games, you would average 13,000, there’s about 250 programs that say: ‘Let me sign on the dotted line,’” he said. “And this is an exhibition against ourselves when I thought we might be playing 4-on-4 because of the injuries …
“So this is crazy. I mean, they paid to see us scrimmage. This wasn’t people just walking off the street now. They had to pay to get a ticket to come to the game, and 13,000 come. Only here could that happen. Only here.”
Of course, during his state-of-the-program address at Big Blue Madness seven days earlier, Calipari emphasized how Kentucky should not be lumped in with other programs. On that occasion, he likened UK to Carnegie Hall with a “limitless” potential.
Sestina apologizes
During the game, Sestina was overheard apologizing to referee Doug Shows for blurting out an expletive.
“My mom will probably text me about it,” he said. “(The referees) talked to us before the game about watching our mouths. I said something, and I apologized for it.”
How did Shows respond?
“He said, ‘You’re good. Don’t worry about it,’” Sestina said.
Head tap
After dunking over Tyrese Maxey, Sestina put a hand over his own head and tapped.
Message? “It’s on his head,” Sestina said of the meaning of the gesture. “Dunked on him. He’ll get me back. I know it.”
