Calipari addresses Dontaie Allen’s lack of playing time after loss to North Carolina
It was another poor shooting performance and another loss for Kentucky on Saturday, a 75-63 defeat to North Carolina that dropped the Wildcats to 1-5 on the season.
UK shot 39.6 percent from the field and made just three of 13 three-point attempts. The Cats were 7-for-21 from the field and missed all five of their threes in the second half.
After the game, UK Coach John Calipari was asked if he considered giving more playing time to 2019 Kentucky Mr. Basketball Dontaie Allen, who has played the least of any healthy scholarship player this season and played only the final one minute and nine seconds Saturday, once the game was out of reach.
“I could have done it today, but I’m giving these guys that are in front of him the room that they need to be able to miss shots,” Calipari said. “We go in practice, they make shots. They ain’t making them in the game. And it’s not, ‘I come out every time I miss a shot.’ Obviously, you guys know that’s not true. So you try to give them room and encourage them to shoot. We got some guys that, I tell them in huddles, ‘If you don’t shoot the ball, I’m taking you out.’”
All three of Kentucky’s starting guards are shooting worse than 30 percent from three-point range through six games this season. Davion Mintz is at 28.6 percent, Terrence Clarke is at 26.3 percent and Brandon Boston is at 17.2 percent. (Mintz was 3-for-6 from deep Saturday, making all of Kentucky’s threes).
Freshman guard Devin Askew is shooting a team-best 36.4 percent from three-point range, but he’s attempted just 11 threes in 161 minutes on the court. As a team, Kentucky is shooting 24.3 percent from deep.
Allen, who was one of the most prolific scorers in Kentucky high school basketball history, was especially known to be a terrific three-point shooter in high school. The former Pendleton County standout sat out all of last season as he recovered from a torn ACL suffered early in his senior season of high school.
He’s made two of six three-point attempts in a little more than 19 minutes of court time this season. He didn’t play at all in two of UK’s games, and he was pulled after committing three turnovers in fewer than four first-half minutes in the Cats’ loss to Georgia Tech two weeks ago.
Calipari criticized UK’s ball control after that defeat, specifically noting that one player committed three turnovers in the first half alone. (Allen was the only such player with that stat).
“If you’re a turnover guy, I can’t play you,” Calipari said then. “Now, I’m going to work with you in practice. I’m going to do whatever I can to keep you, to get you, to drill you, to get you to understand. And again, the plays, if you look at them, they have an easy play but they try and do something tough. It’s, ‘I’m trying to make my plays.’ But we’ll get it.”
Allen’s limited action in the final minute of Saturday’s game — after four Kentucky players had fouled out — was the first time he had played since the loss to Georgia Tech.
Every other healthy scholarship player has played at least 50 minutes through six games, including freshman Cam’Ron Fletcher, who is ninth on the team in minutes played (52:39) and, Calipari said, was upset about his lack of playing time in the final minutes of Saturday’s game.
Fletcher played just 2:38 against North Carolina, his third consecutive game with fewer than five minutes of court time after playing at least 13 minutes in each of Kentucky’s first three games.
“You gotta accept your position on this team — whatever minutes you get,” Calipari said. “And Cam was mad he didn’t play more. And I’m like, ‘The guys in front of you are playing (well).’ ... Cam came in and apologized after. But they don’t understand that — with four minutes to go — we had a chance to win the game. And you cop an attitude — it’s the immaturity of that.”
The only returning scholarship player that actually played on last season’s UK team is Keion Brooks, who has been sidelined for all six of the Cats’ games this season with an injury. Allen is the only other scholarship player on this team who was in Lexington last season. He practiced during the final weeks of that season but never played.
Calipari implied his time would come in the future.
“What Dontaie needs to do is just stay ready, so when his opportunity comes, bang, he takes advantage of it,” Calipari said. “We’ve had it happen before to guys, and that’s what they’ve gotta do.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2020 at 5:34 PM.
