UK freshman relearning basketball. ‘You would take a lot of plays off’ in high school.
Kentucky’s margin of victory against Fairleigh Dickinson was its second-largest of the season. Only the 91-49 blowout of Eastern Kentucky exceeded it.
But in the game within the game, UK’s 83-52 victory Saturday was just part of a challenging adjustment. UK Coach John Calipari’s call for relentless competitive fight is not a familiar concept.
Keion Brooks, who scored a career-high 15 points, spoke of having to almost relearn how to play basketball.
“Coming from high school, I wasn’t required to fight and play hard every possession,” he said. “It’s just been a learning curve for me.”
When asked if he paced himself in high school, Brooks said, “You would take a lot of plays off, to be honest. Sometimes the players you were playing against are not your caliber. You could get away with that.”
Fellow freshman Johnny Juzang has linked his poor shooting so far this season — 5-for-23 overall, 2-for-13 from three-point distance — on how his UK role does not resemble his high school role.
“I don’t like to admit it, but in high school, I was a volume shooter …,” he said Thursday. “It’s definitely an adjustment, but it’s a good adjustment because OK, here, you got to learn to play efficient. … Going to the next level, you’re probably not going to come in and shoot 20 shots a game. So you’ve got to learn to be efficient there as well.”
600th victory
Beating Fairleigh Dickinson marked Kentucky’s 600th victory in Rupp Arena. Calipari, whose record in Rupp as UK coach improved to 172-10, acknowledged how his predecessors as UK coaches contributed to the milestone.
“I’m just happy that I could be part of it …,” he said. “I’m glad that we’ve played a part of it.”
Juzang starts
Calipari made a change in UK’s starting lineup. Juzang started in place of fellow freshman Kahlil Whitney.
When asked what Juzang did to prompt the change, Calipari answered with one word, “fought.”
Then the UK coach credited Juzang with making “the biggest play in the game.”
Calipari referenced an offensive rebound Juzang grabbed an offensive rebound late in the first half and got fouled on his attempt at a second-chance score.
Fairleigh Dickinson had just made back-to-back three-pointers to narrow UK’s lead to 35-19. Calipari called time with four minutes to go in the half. It was another example of UK’s inconsistent play in this early season, Calipari said.
“He stopped the bleeding,” the UK coach said. “And it wasn’t like he did anything but fight. And that’s what he’s been doing in practice.”
Remembering ‘Mr. Wildcat’
A group of former UK managers met at the Lawrenceburg gravesite of Bill Keightley on Saturday morning.
One of those former managers, Donnie Adkins, said about 16 people participated in the gathering they hope to make an annual remembrance of the longtime UK equipment manager affectionately known as “Mr. Wildcat.”
Adkins, 68, was the oldest participant. The age span extended to managers who worked for UK basketball when Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith were the coaches.
Former managers and UK star Kyle Macy began the remembrance of Keightley last year.
After his years as a UK student, Adkins coached for 27 seasons in Lexington, the first 20 as an assistant at Tates Creek High School and the final seven as head coach at Lafayette High School.
Adkins described Keightley as “a guy we went to for advice. It didn’t make any difference (what the question was). Sometimes the answer was ‘just go.’”
Keightley died on March 31, 2008, at age 81.
“As we get older, we all realize there are people in our lives that influence us,” Adkins said. “That you feel you need to pay respect to. Our way is to get together and tell Bill Keightley stories.”
4-9
Florida’s loss to No. 24 Butler on Saturday dropped the SEC’s record against ranked opponents to 4-9.
Of course, UK has one of the four victories: the 69-62 victory over then-No. 1 Michigan State.
On the plus side, the three ranked SEC teams in The Associated Press Top 25 poll have a 3-0 record against ranked opponents. Tennessee has the other two, both against No. 20 teams: 75-62 over Washington on Nov. 16 and 72-69 over VCU on Nov. 30.
No. 1
Duke increased its weeks being ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll to 144. No program has been No. 1 more weeks in the history of the AP poll.
Kentucky’s one week at No. 1 moved its total to 125 weeks. That’s the third-most, trailing Duke and UCLA (134).
Louisville, the current No. 1, has been atop an AP poll three times … and counting.
This story was originally published December 7, 2019 at 9:22 PM.
