‘It’s going to be two desperate teams.’ UK, LSU both badly need a win.
Kentucky is coming off three straight defeats, the third time the polar opposite of charming. Georgia won 63-62 on a layup with 1.3 seconds left Wednesday.
A night before, LSU lost 105-75 to Alabama. It was the Tigers’ most lopsided home loss since 2017.
After Kentucky’s record fell to an un-Kentucky-like 4-9, John Calipari spoke of the need to play with a desperate zeal. Assistant coach Joel Justus, who substituted for Calipari on Friday’s teleconference, echoed that theme.
“We talk about playing desperate every single day,” he said. “I’ve been here seven years, and that’s something we talk about from the first second we are with our young people.”
On Saturday, Kentucky will face a like-minded team in LSU.
“Whether we win or lose Saturday, we just need to play better,” LSU Coach Will Wade said. “And I have confidence we’re going to play better.”
A cynic might say, how could LSU play worse? Alabama made a Southeastern Conference 23 three-point shots. That included six inside the first four minutes in peeling out of the starting gate. LSU made five of 26 in the game.
“It’s going to be two desperate teams,” Wade said of Saturday’s game.
When asked about the mood of the Kentucky team, Justus seemed to reference the stages of grief.
“I think it goes in phases,” he said. “When you lose a tough game, there’s the anger. There’s the disappointment that sets in initially. Same thing for the coaches. Probably the same thing for fans.”
Brandon Boston, who at Georgia was an oasis in Kentucky’s desert of a season, said despair had not set in.
“I wouldn’t say we’re discouraged,” he said. (Incidentally, Calipari said after the Georgia game that he was discouraged.)
“Obviously, everybody would be mad with this kind of record,” Boston said. “We should be better. But I feel like we’ve been putting the hard work in. We’ve got to keep our heads high.”
Of LSU’s reaction to a 30-point beating, Wade said, “The natural reaction was we were all a little disappointed. We were all embarrassed. That would be a good word.”
Wade likened the task he and Calipari face to a ship’s captain navigating on a stormy sea.
“Anybody can captain a boat in smooth waters,” the LSU coach said. “It’s what happens when the water gets rocky. That’s what makes a skilled sailor.”
Justus put Kentucky’s situation in the context of a youthful team benefiting from its setbacks.
“Our guys are having to continue with their resolve, continue with a fighting mentality to be better …,” he said. “The only way you become experienced is to go through things that we went through the other night. Or a season or games or practices we’ve gone through.”
LSU, 10-3 overall and 5-2 in the Southeastern Conference, was philosophical about what Wade called a “total, all-systems breakdown” against Alabama. The LSU coach cited something one of his former bosses, Tommy Amaker, had said.
“You play five games a year a lot better than you really are,” he said. Of a 40-6 run against Arkansas earlier this season, Wade said, “We’re certainly not as good as that.”
Then he added, “You play five games below your level where you kind of stink the joint up. … You can’t let the five worst games affect those middle 20 games when you play about normal. That’s what we’ve tried to focus on.
“You have to move on quickly. Certainly, there’s lessons you have to learn. But you have to have amnesia a little bit and move on and get ready to go.”
Kentucky, 3-3 in the SEC, has been effective defensively. Four of its six league opponents have made less than 40 percent of their shots.
UK’s poor three-point shooting is well-chronicled. To put Alabama’s 23 three-point baskets against LSU in perspective, Kentucky has made 20 (of 74) in the last five games. In the season’s first five games, UK made 22 (of 90).
“For the most part, when you watch us play defense, I think we’re going a good job,” Justus said before adding, “We’ve got to figure how we’re going to score some points.”
If the game against South Carolina is made up, Kentucky is exactly halfway through a 26-game regular season.
Justus suggested it was still too early to determine the ceiling for this Kentucky team.
“I think we don’t know that,” he said. “As we sit here on Jan. 22, our story is still being written: individually as well as a team.
“And that’s why it’s a story. It’s a season. It’s not one game. It’s not a collection of games. It’s an entire season of games.”
Saturday
LSU at Kentucky
When: 6 p.m.
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: LSU 10-3 (5-2 SEC); UK 4-9 (3-3 SEC)
Series: UK leads 90-27
Last meeting: UK won 79-76 on Feb. 18, 2020, in Baton Rouge, La.
