Florida State ‘looked like the Lakers’ after a pause; what about UK?
Kentucky’s game at Missouri was moved to Wednesday with a starting time of 7 p.m. EST. The game had originally been scheduled for Tuesday with a 9 p.m. EST start.
The change gives Kentucky an extra day to prepare. The UK program is coming off a 48-hour pause due to a positive test for the coronavirus.
Kentucky’s game against Texas last weekend was canceled. UK has not played since losing at Alabama last Tuesday.
With Kentucky not playing a game in more than a week, the question becomes this: how might this unexpected layoff affect the team?
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas answered with a question: “How can we know?”
Bilas offered two diametrically opposed examples of how teams fared after being forced to pause basketball activities earlier this season.
Florida State lost 77-67 at Clemson on Dec. 29. The Seminoles’ next two games were postponed, which meant its next game would be against North Carolina State on Jan. 13.
How did Florida State play? “They looked like the Lakers,” Bilas said of the 105-73 victory.
But Michigan State paused after losing 55-54 against Purdue on Jan. 8. In the next game, which was on Jan. 28, Rutgers routed the Spartans 67-37. It was Michigan State’s fewest points in a game since 2008.
These two examples led Bilas to say of the coronavirus pandemic, “This is a 100-year event. You can’t look at anything and say, well, here’s a guide. Everybody is flying by the seat of their pants here.”
Florida State Coach Leonard Hamilton, who formerly was an assistant coach at Kentucky, cited several factors for his team’s rout of N.C. State. He said he tried to coach the players’ minds rather than bodies by communicating regularly through Zoom calls, phone calls and sending them video to watch.
The players also jogged two or three miles each morning.
“When we came off pause, it was almost like letting wild animals out of a cage,” Hamilton said. “They were so eager, so focused, so connected and eager to get back to work.”
Hamilton suggested coming off a loss served as motivation. The Seminoles dropped out of The Associated Press Top 25 while on pause.
“I think that sent us a signal that we weren’t very well respected …,” Hamilton said. “That we had some work to do on the national basis.”
Among SEC teams, South Carolina has the most experience with expecting the unexpected. A 109-86 loss to Auburn on Jan. 23 was the Gamecocks’ fifth game in 49 days.
After that game, Coach Frank Martin said he had not been able to establish a foundation for this team.
“The one thing you guys who have covered my teams for nine years (know) they’re going to play hard and they’re going to play together,” he said. “That’s the only thing I’ve ever controlled. I’ve controlled that through practice and personal relationships. Right now, we’re void of those two things.”
Of course, a pause can affect conditioning. It didn’t help that South Carolina was down to nine players in its 78-71 victory over Florida A&M 78-71. That was the Gamecocks’ first game in 28 days. “I feel like everyone was definitely a little winded,” guard A.J. Lawson said.
The game was on Jan. 2. South Carolina had last played on Dec. 5.
“It felt like the first game of the year, and the nervous part has nothing to do with winning and losing,” Martin said. “It’s with the unknowns.”
Florida Coach MIke White had a mixed reaction to 15 unplanned days off in December. The pause came after Keyontae Johnson’s scary collapse on the court at Florida State.“Our guys needed to get away from it,” White said. “We’re really happy to be back together. We’re really rusty. Our conditioning is not anywhere it needs to be to be really competitive in this league.”
Ole Miss had its first four games of the season canceled.
“When you pause, offense is where you need to work on the most …,” Coach Kermit Davis said. “It’s all the skill development. Timing of running an offense. Just the cutting. Just to be able to execute with detail. … Cleaning up and being a good screening team. More so than defensively. Obviously, there’s some strategy there, too. I just think a lot of it is effort, toughness and trying to compete.”
Wednesday
Kentucky at No. 18 Missouri
When: 7 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Records: UK 5-10 (4-4 SEC); Missouri 11-3 (4-3 SEC)
