Dontaie Allen stays on bench in another UK loss. ‘But he’s going to have a chance.’
It was another ugly loss for a struggling Kentucky basketball team Saturday — this one a 62-59 defeat at archrival Louisville — and it was another game where UK’s Dontaie Allen didn’t see the court.
Allen, a 6-foot-6 redshirt freshman guard from Falmouth and Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball last year, has clearly become the center of a rallying cry from a portion of the Wildcats’ fan base that would like to see the in-state kid get a bigger opportunity. Allen came to college with the reputation of a skilled offensive player and knockdown three-point shooter. The Cats, now an unfathomable 1-6 on the season, are averaging 64.9 points per game and have made exactly 25 percent of their three-point attempts.
In Saturday’s loss to Louisville, they shot 34.5 percent from the field. UK was 5-for-17 from three-point range, but Davion Mintz went 4-for-6 on his own. The rest of the team combined to make one of 11 three-point attempts.
All the while, Allen sat on the Kentucky sideline. It was the third time this season he didn’t play at all. Last weekend, he played only the final 1:09 in a loss to North Carolina, after four of his teammates had fouled out and the game was out of reach.
After that defeat, UK Coach John Calipari said Allen needed to “stay ready” for his opportunity. Since that loss, Calipari sent freshman Cam’Ron Fletcher home following a public outburst over his own lack of playing time, leaving UK with just nine available scholarship players against U of L.
Only eight played, and the first question in Calipari’s postgame press conference came from Allen’s hometown newspaper and referenced the previous week’s comments that Allen should be prepared for an opportunity in the future.
Calipari said that opportunity nearly came Saturday. Freshman guard Terrence Clarke — a regular starter — injured his ankle against North Carolina and continued to be hobbled in the week leading up to the Louisville game. Calipari brought Clarke off the bench Saturday.
“I tried to see if we could steal some minutes with him, but it was a mistake,” the UK coach said. “He’s playing at 80 percent, maybe.”
Clarke played 16 minutes total against Louisville but just four in the second half. He scored zero points — on 0-for-4 shooting and 0-for-3 from three-point range — with no rebounds, no assists and one turnover.
Calipari said after Saturday’s loss that those minutes could have gone to Allen instead. “I told Dontaie today, ‘Be ready for your chance. If Terrence — if I don’t think he can go — then I’m going with you. And it’s going to be your opportunity.’”
Calipari said he thought about putting Allen in during the first half — “I wish I would have” — and explained that, if he doesn’t play a player in the first half of a close game, he’s probably not going to play him in the second half.
“But he’s going to have a chance,” Calipari reiterated. “It just wasn’t tonight. And I coached the game to win. That’s all I did.”
As it stands, Allen has played a grand total of one minute and nine seconds — all in garbage time of that UNC loss — over UK’s past three and a half games. He didn’t play against Notre Dame in the game before that, and he didn’t play in the second half of the team’s previous game, a loss to Georgia Tech, after committing three turnovers in fewer than four minutes of first-half play.
Among UK’s many problems this season, Calipari has particularly lamented the team’s number of turnovers. The Cats were averaging 16.7 turnovers per game going into Saturday but committed just 11 against the Cards. Calipari said he was pleased with that.
“If you’re a turnover guy, I can’t play you,” Calipari said after the Georgia Tech loss, specifically mentioning Allen’s first-half turnover total.
UK’s coach also said Saturday that he will play the guys who play well when they get their opportunities, specifically pointing to advanced minutes for Jacob Toppin and Lance Ware.
None of these explanations are likely to sit well with disgruntled UK fans looking for something different — as long as the Cats keep shooting poorly and losing games — but Calipari said the guys getting playing time right now are getting those opportunities for a reason. And those who aren’t will need to step up whenever the next chance comes.
“I don’t play favorites. You guys know me here. If you’re going to help us win, I’m gonna play you,” Calipari said. “If somebody else is better than you, they get the first opportunity. If they’re not playing well and you get an opportunity and you don’t play well … the top seven, they get more room to miss shots, make mistakes. That’s just how it is. Since the game was invented, that’s been what it is. You’re one of those top five, six — you get more room. You’re eight, nine, ten — you’re gonna get chances. But not as much space as those others, because they’ve earned it in practice. They’ve earned it on the court. And that’s what we do. But, again, stuff changes.”
This story was originally published December 26, 2020 at 5:12 PM.
