John Calipari describes how Kentucky basketball pulled out a gutsy win at Mississippi State
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Game day: Kentucky 71, Mississippi State 68
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Wednesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Mississippi State at Starkville, Miss.
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Kentucky men’s basketball finally has another Quad 1 victory.
The Wildcats outlasted the Mississippi State Bulldogs 71-68 on Wednesday night at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville, Mississippi, in a battle of bubble teams for the NCAA Tournament.
UK got a vintage performance from star big man Oscar Tshiebwe: 18 points and 11 rebounds for his 43rd career double-double as a Kentucky Wildcat.
Head coach John Calipari’s team was able to overcome the absences of two experienced guards in CJ Fredrick and Sahvir Wheeler to record the win, which came after UK mostly held its nerve at the free-throw line in the closing seconds of the game.
Afterward, Calipari met with the media inside Humphrey Coliseum to recap a much-needed win for the Wildcats, which pushes them back on the right side of the NCAA Tournament discussion for the time being.
Q. Question about Kentucky’s rebounding and grit.
We talked about it. Look, Mississippi State, what they’ve done in this winning streak, and what they’ve done to good teams, they have absolutely dominated offensive rebounds, out-hustle, being tougher, turning people over.
We had one guy go 1-for-13 and we won the game. He went 1-for-13. I thought it was 1-for-11 and the coaches (said) ‘No, he was 1-for-13.’ But he had 11 assists. And he defended. And the biggest rebounds Cason came up with.
Oscar is beginning to be himself, not quite there yet. But Chris, and I gotta give Tyler (Ulis) credit because he said look, they got a small man on Chris, post him up. And then you saw what we did, we went four or five straight times to post him up. And it’s stuff that we have so it’s not like I had to do something new. We just said, just we’re going to get him the ball on these cuts.
Q. Question about Kentucky’s nothing to lose mentality.
Well, the biggest thing I’ve been talking to them about is refuse to lose. Just refuse to lose. And you may run out of time. But refuse to lose. You just keep fighting.
Like today we missed that one free throw and then we miss a three and another three and they’re making, and again, I’m not saying anything, but whatever we do to teams they’re shooting like 90% from the free throw line, everybody. It doesn’t matter if you shoot 50%, you go against us, you shoot 90%.
But we made the plays down at the end. The play at halftime made me mad because we were going to let them catch it, and my man, again I hadn’t played Adou that much, he tried to go get it and that kid makes the three. It was a hard-fought game for both teams.
Q. Question about UK’s bench energy.
Well, last week, one of the guys said to me your bench was not into it. And I went on the bus and I just said guys, this is what somebody in the media says to me.
I’m not looking at the bench. I didn’t look at the bench today. But I told guys if you’re not going to be into it, don’t sit on the bench, sit in the seats. If you’re hurt, sit in the seats. If you’re not playing or you’re not going to play and you don’t want to get into the game, I’m okay just sitting, you know, sit in the upper deck, but you’re not sitting on the bench.
We got everything out ahead of us and I’ll say it again. There are a lot of teams. There are a lot of things that are rooting against us because people don’t want to play us in that tournament. I got a good team. I’m just trying to convince them of that.
We’ve got to get healthy without CJ and Sahvir, we’re on fumes a little bit at the end of a game because I’m playing guys too many minutes, but I called a timeout at one point with what 12:08. You understand I did that to... We just had to get a break for Cason or I had to take him out and I didn’t want to take him out.
But we ended up still going home with a timeout, I always like to go home with one or two in case we need them, or three, for that matter.
Q. Questions about Cason Wallace leaving the game early in the second half, and if it was injury related.
I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. You’d have to ask him.
Q. Question about CJ Fredrick and Sahvir Wheeler returning from injury.
I hope Saturday, (they) haven’t practiced so and we’re not, you know, we won’t go with a live practice tomorrow. And then Friday, we’ll you know, we’ll have to see. And we make no excuses.
I mean, no one’s reporting so we might as well not talk about it, that we’re playing injured. And we’ve had guys out, one game in the league we had two starters, Cason and Jacob out. Well Cason played like seven, eight minutes, but he was hurt the whole time. But then I didn’t play him anymore.
No excuses at this time. How many games we have left? Five games. That’s what we got. We got five to go. Who’s ready to play? Who’s ready to fight? Refuse to lose. Do what you got to do for the team. I had to take one guy out because I said ‘You’re playing for yourself.’ When we’re doing a scheme defensively and you choose just to guard your man. You can’t be in the game. And then he went back and played well.
Chris was an all star today. Was really proud of him. And I had to take him out at half because he turned one over, almost turned another one over with a minute to go and I took him out. I said guys, you’re fine, but what am I gonna let you turn another one over? Just settle down at halftime and come out and play and he did.
Q. Question about Kentucky’s clutch free throw shooting down the stretch.
It’s how you win games. But what did they shoot today? 90%? (Kentucky shot 75% on free throws. Mississippi State shot 73.7% on free throws.)
I’ve had some of the worst free-throw shooting teams ever. But they’ve made shots with the last four or five minutes. So we can shoot 80% in that time. Hopefully that’s what this team is. Cason knocked his down. Oscar went three out of four. Chris made his. So it was a good win.
Q. Question about how frequently Cal has brought up the refuse to lose mentality at Kentucky from his UMass teams.
I haven’t at all. But I told them when I was at UMass, Harper Williams got hurt. He was one of our stars. He was our big guy. He got hurt, now we got no big guy so we got backup big guys. And we had to go to Rutgers to play. Rutgers in that building. Anybody will tell you it’s just a hard place.
Tony Barbee shifted over, played some five, wasn’t happy but he scored he did it. We ended up playing and beating them and winning eight in a row. And I said the whole thing was fight. There are no excuses, fight. Refusing to lose doesn’t mean you win every time. It means you may run out of time, but you’re not stopping your refusal to give up.
I’ll have to tell you, Mississippi State refused to lose today. You think of it, they tried to extend the game and I had to foul because I was scared to death (that) they’re gonna make a three and they’re not a great three-point shooting team. Someone would bank one against us.
Q. Question about Humphrey Coliseum environment for Wednesday’s game
It’s always crazy here. You remember this one? (Mimics holding a phone to his ear). I mean, it’s been nuts every time we play here and to get out with a win against a team that’s on fire right now, was a big deal for us.
This story was originally published February 16, 2023 at 12:17 AM.
