Calipari sees beauty in Maxey’s bricked three near end of UK’s win against Ole Miss
Kentucky Coach John Calipari saw significance in the three-point brick Tyrese Maxey shot inside the final two minutes of his team’s 67-62 win against Mississippi on Saturday night.
Maxey shot from the right wing. The ball banked off the glass to the left of the basket. It was the freshman’s reaction to such a miss that caught Calipari’s eye.
“There was no one near him, now …,” Calipari said. “Two weeks ago, he’d have had his head back and ran back.
“Two weeks later, playing to win, he runs down the ball and shoots the layup that may have won the game for us. Versus ‘I can’t believe I did that. I’m embarrassed. High school.’”
At a time like this, Calipari said he wants a player to move on to the next play. “Who cares?” he said of the reaction he wants from a player who misses badly. “Just play.”
Maxey smiled when asked about Calipari’s comment.
“I thought I always played to win,” he said.
Maxey pointed out how EJ Montgomery played a critical role in turning a badly missed shot into a basket that put Kentucky ahead 61-60 with 1:34 left. Montgomery got on the floor to win the rebound scuffle. While still on the floor, he rolled the ball to Maxey standing at the top of the key. Maxey then drove for a score.
“Coach K.P. (Kenny Payne) always says before the game, he points right at (Montgomery) and he says, ‘You go get every single offensive rebound,’” Maxey said. “And he tried to do that.”
When asked how he missed a shot so badly, Maxey said, “If I was going to be completely honest with you, when I shot it, I thought I made it. Then I looked at it, oh, that’s not going in.”
Visitors from Canada
The crowd in Rupp Arena included two Canadians who make an annual pilgrimage to watch college basketball.
They were Jim Grozdanich, 66, whose jobs include scouting for the Detroit Red Wings, and Jason Winslade, 52, who operates an events center in the Vancouver area.
Last winter, they went to home games at Cincinnati, Xavier, Louisville and Kentucky. The latter two games pitted U of L against Duke and UK against No. 1 Tennessee.
When asked why they’ve made these trips each of the last five years or so, Grozdanich said, “Why not?” He then deferred to Winslade, whom he said had a passion for college basketball.
Only Final Four games are televised in Canada, Winslade said. He recalled getting hooked as an 11-year-old watching UK win the national championship in 1978.
“I loved that team, Kyle Macy in particular,” he said.
As a bonus, Jack “Goose” Givens, the hero of the 1978 championship game, was the “Y” in the K-E-N-T-U-C-K-Y cheer Saturday.
The two planned to go to Baton Rouge to watch Kentucky play LSU next Tuesday and then on to Texas to see the Longhorns play TCU the next night.
SEC race
Former Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy, who now works as an analyst for the SEC Network, sized up the league race with UK, Auburn and LSU tied for first going into this weekend.
“There are two teams in this league that have a really definitive home-court advantage,” he said. “One is Kentucky. The other is Auburn. And they do a great job of defending their home court. I’d have to say they are the prohibitive favorites.
“LSU, though, is still LSU. Certainly talented.”
Kentucky, which retained at least a share of first place by beating Ole Miss, plays at LSU on Tuesday. LSU lost at Alabama 88-82 on Saturday.
Historical note
Ole Miss last defeated Kentucky in Rupp Arena on Valentine’s Day in 1998. Current Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter scored a game-high 21 points to lead the Rebels to a 73-64 victory over then-No. 7 UK in that game.
The only other time Ole Miss has won at UK came on Feb. 11, 1927.
UK improved its record against Ole Miss in Lexington to 55-2.
DanceBlue
Calipari opened his Friday news conference by mentioning the upcoming DanceBlue 2020 event.
DanceBlue 2020 raises money for the Golden Matrix Fund, which is part of the Kentucky Children’s Hospital Hematology/Oncology Clinic. DanceBlue also helps provide funds for research done by UK’s’ Markey Cancer Center.
DanceBlue 2020 will be held in Memorial Coliseum beginning at 8 p.m. Feb. 29 and continuing until 8 p.m. March 1.
“A great thing for students,” Calipari said. “Another thing to learn on a college campus … to come together for something bigger than you.”
Donations can be made on DanceBlue’s website at danceblue.networkforgood.com.
‘GameDay’
ESPN announced that its “College GameDay” show will originate from Waco, Texas, next Saturday.
The featured game will be No. 1 Baylor against No. 3 Kansas.
This story was originally published February 15, 2020 at 7:13 PM.
