Kentucky players reveal Calipari’s latest ‘tweak.’ Can the Wildcats’ offense be fixed?
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Game day: No. 19 Kentucky 88, Florida A&M 68
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Wednesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Florida A&M in Rupp Arena.
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Kentucky’s much-maligned offense put up 88 points Wednesday night.
Don’t get too excited, Cat fans.
The level of opponent made it a certainty that — whatever the Wildcats did on the basketball court in this one — no long-term conclusions regarding the UK offense would be drawn.
Kentucky defeated Florida A&M 88-68, a wide margin made much less impressive by a few important facts. Like UK being a 37.5-point favorite. Or Florida A&M coming in at No. 358 in the KenPom ratings (out of 363 Division I teams). The Rattlers’ only two victories in 10 games this season were against Division II opponents. They were 289th nationally in KenPom defensive efficiency when they walked into Rupp Arena. Less than a month ago, they gave up 102 points in a loss to Florida, which looks to be a middle-of-the-pack Southeastern Conference team.
So, no, nothing that happened on the court Wednesday night was going to change the minds of those who think this Kentucky team — and this UK offense, in particular — is a far cry from the national title contender pretty much everyone thought the Cats to be in the preseason.
But there’s a whole lot of basketball yet to be played. Twenty regular-season games beyond this one, in fact. And the victory over Florida A&M was the first time the Cats had played since UK Coach John Calipari acknowledged on his weekly radio show Monday night that, yes, something needed to change within his offense. That, no, things weren’t going too well on that side of the ball.
That admission came two days after the Cats put up just 53 points — the fifth-lowest scoring total in Calipari’s 14 seasons as Kentucky’s coach — in a 63-53 loss to UCLA in New York.
The signs of a troubled offense were there long before the Cats clunked their way to a double-digit defeat in Madison Square Garden, and their coach finally said as much this week.
“I know we’re not OK offensively right now, and I know we’ve got to tweak some things,” he said Monday night. “We’ve got to play a little differently.”
The “tweak” has become part of the Calipari lexicon during his time at Kentucky, most famously used to describe what happened at the end of a 2013-14 season that began with talk of a 40-0 record and nearly ended in, by the standards of the day, mediocrity.
Calipari employed his “tweak” heading into that postseason. UK, with six McDonald’s All-American freshmen, was a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. And the Cats made it all the way to the national title game. The tweak turned out to be, in effect, Calipari telling point guard Andrew Harrison to look to pass the ball more. A simple change and surely not the sole reason for Kentucky’s magical run through March that year. But those few weeks were thrilling enough that whenever “tweak” is mentioned, it warrants at least a little extra attention.
Just as he didn’t give up on that 2013-14 squad, Calipari isn’t about to throw in the towel with this bunch, a veteran team led by Oscar Tshiebwe, the reigning national player of the year, with seemingly plenty of talent behind him.
“We’re still a work in progress, and I would tell everybody, just be patient,” Calipari said after Wednesday night’s uneven victory. “You know, if you’ve watched me work and coach in the past, it takes time to get it all together, and I’m not panicked. Some of the guys, I’m the biggest proponent for guys in that room. We’ve got work to do now.”
What is the ‘tweak’?
The latest incarnation of Calipari’s tweak is a multi-layered approach.
According to several Kentucky players, the UK coach brought them all into the film room after that UCLA loss and went down the line, breaking down the tape without holding back one bit.
“He was a little bit tough for all of us,” Tshiebwe said, smiling a little as he recalled an animated Calipari giving it to his team. “He was jumping around. We were like, ‘Wow, he’s about to get me.’”
The Wildcats said Calipari laid out specific roles for each player — or, at the very least, each position group — moving forward.
Jacob Toppin said the coach wants UK’s “4s” to concentrate on crashing the boards and playing defense. “Just be that fighting player that he wants to see at the ‘4’ position,” he said.
Tshiebwe said Calipari wants the ball to flow through the “5” spot, and he also wants to see his bigs running more moving forward, a perceived advantage for that position group, in particular.
There were different demands made for different players.
Some of Calipari’s wants clearly apply to everyone.
“Patience” was a word that kept coming up. Kentucky’s coach — and some of the Wildcats themselves — said they’ve been rushing in certain situations, especially late in close games.
Asked to pinpoint one thing offensively that UK could get better at, Toppin quickly replied.
“Patience. We’re not patient,” he shot back. “I feel like, if we get an offensive rebound, we’re trying to put it back in instead of running another offensive play. We just have to have more patience offensively, and we’ll get better at that.”
To his point, UK scored zero points on its final 10 offensive rebounds in that UCLA game. On every one of those second-chance possessions, the Cats either put up a missed shot or committed a turnover within eight seconds of grabbing the rebound. In most of those cases, it was four seconds or fewer before Kentucky came away empty.
Tshiebwe said this team is in such a rush that, often, players aren’t even in the right spots.
“I think the problem with the offense — we just gotta be exactly where Coach wants us to be,” he said, adding that he’s told teammates to yell down and make sure he knows what’s being run, acknowledging that sometimes he’s not on the same page in the halfcourt offense.
“Come in and tell me what we’re running so I can position myself. I gotta be in the right place,” Tshiebwe said. “For us, sometimes, we’re just not in the right place. Sometimes, even me, I struggle, because I run so fast, and I get there. The gym is loud — if Sahvir (Wheeler) calls something, I don’t know what we’re running.”
Not the best thing to be happening a third of the way through the season, but Tshiebwe at least acknowledges the shortcomings. Kentucky’s biggest star also thinks UK plays well offensively when the team actually slows down, gets on the same page, and runs its stuff.
“If we put ourselves in a position where we’re always where Coach wants us to be, I think it would make it easy,” he said. “Most of the time, we (aren’t) in the right places and positions.”
Positives for Kentucky?
“We’re better than this,” Calipari said after that loss to UCLA.
There wasn’t much the Cats could have done against Florida A&M to back up that statement. Kentucky will go into the holiday break — a week off before a Dec. 28 game at Missouri — with plenty to sort out and lots of opportunities to prove the Hall of Fame coach correct in the future, with a Southeastern Conference schedule featuring seven games against teams currently ranked in the AP Top 25, as well as a home date with No. 4 Kansas next month.
And while Wednesday night was still ugly on many levels — Florida A&M was down just seven points with fewer than five minutes to go, for instance — there were some positive signs for the Wildcats.
Cason Wallace obliterated his previous career high of 15 points by scoring 27 against the Rattlers, going 10-for-15 from the field and 5-for-6 from three-point range. All while dishing out nine assists. After the game, he credited … the tweak.
“I think I came to the game with a different mindset — trying to get to the basket a little bit, instead of shooting so many threes,” Wallace said. “So, being more aggressive on offense worked for me tonight.”
The freshman guard went on to explain that he had started to fall in love with the three-ball after getting off to such a hot start from the perimeter in his college career. As a result, he was deferring to older, more experienced players in other aspects of the offense. Calipari didn’t want that. He wanted Wallace to “get downhill” and attack the basket, disorient the defense and create for himself and others in the process. That was largely his game in high school, and it made him one of the highest-ranked backcourt recruits in the country. That was his game Wednesday night, and he ended up the star of the show.
“Practice translated to the game,” he said.
Another positive for Kentucky: senior guard CJ Fredrick broke his shooting slump, nailing his first three attempts from long range and leading the Wildcats with nine first-half points. He ended up with 12 points after another three late in the game. He said it felt good to see the ball go through the hoop again after going scoreless in each of his past two appearances, and scoring just three points in the one before that. He also smiled at the mention of the film session that followed that UCLA loss.
“It was a good experience,” he said. “We watched a bunch of film, and he was very defined with our roles and what we do to help our team win. We had a really good couple days of practice. It was good for us.”
Whether anything real comes of this remains to be seen. Missouri on the road will pose a tough test. Kentucky plays its rivalry game with a reeling Louisville team three days later. And then it’s all SEC, with that date against Kansas thrown in. Those will be the tests the Cats’ offense will need to pass. Those games will give everyone a better idea of whether or not this team can actually compete deep into March.
There are still plenty of believers in the UK locker room going into the holiday break.
“I feel good,” Fredrick said. “We had a good couple days of practice. We were still a little sloppy tonight. But I’m feeling good with where this can go. We really can be a good offensive team. And I think we’re gonna get there. But it’s just going to be every day — getting better and better and better. So, I’m excited.”
Next game
No. 19 Kentucky at Missouri
What: Southeastern Conference opener
When: Dec. 28, 7 p.m. EST
TV: SEC Network
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 8-3, Missouri 10-1
Series: Kentucky leads 14-2
Last meeting: Kentucky won 83-56 on Dec. 29, 2021, in Lexington
This story was originally published December 21, 2022 at 11:12 PM.
