Kentucky’s electric offense sputters out big time in South Carolina. ‘We got punked.’
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Game day: South Carolina 79, No. 6 Kentucky 62
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and South Carolina in Columbia, S.C.
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With the clock stopped and a little more than 4 seconds still on it, South Carolina fans rushed the court at Colonial Life Arena on Tuesday night.
“The game is not over!” the Gamecocks’ PA announcer yelled as “Sandstorm” blared throughout the building. “The game is not over!”
If anybody heard him, they didn’t listen. Kentucky’s players certainly didn’t take heed. The Wildcats were already off the floor by that point, halfway back to their own locker room in an attempt to avoid getting caught up in the inevitable court-storming.
They already knew the truth. The game had been over for quite some time.
A few moments later, the clock flipped to zero and the score was final: South Carolina 79, Kentucky 62.
Not the result anyone was expecting two hours earlier.
UK (14-4, 4-2 SEC) came into town with the No. 6 ranking and the top offense in college basketball. The Cats were playing the team picked to finish last in the SEC during the preseason. But on this night, Kentucky couldn’t buy a bucket — rarely even getting a good look — and the Gamecocks showed again that they’re a much better team than they were given credit for before the season began.
“They did a great job,” John Calipari said of South Carolina. “They came in knowing what they were going to do to us physically. All these young kids, you know. … And they played that way.”
Kentucky’s youth movement — featuring six freshmen and a sophomore with very little experience making up the bulk of the nine-man rotation — took a big step backward Tuesday.
The Cats walked into the building averaging 91.6 points per game, tops in the nation.
They scored 25 points in the first half.
“Well, we drove it, and we weren’t physical enough to hold our ground, and we missed six layups. Six layups,” Calipari said incredulously of the first 20 minutes. “And then we go 2-for-10 from the 3, where we had some 3s and guys were, like, slowly trying to get them off, and South Carolina was bum-rushing us.”
The Gamecocks (16-3, 4-2 SEC) gave Kentucky little room to breathe in the first half, and things didn’t get a whole lot better after halftime. The ball stuck when the Wildcats had it. There were few open shots, fewer opportunities in transition, where this team has thrived all season long.
The final stat line was a horror show, filled with uncharacteristic numbers for a team that prides itself on sharing the ball, running and gunning, putting up points and having fun.
Kentucky had seven assists on 25 made baskets.
“We didn’t get the ball moving,” Calipari said. “I was in every huddle saying the same (thing): ‘Move the ball.’”
UK’s leading scorer this season, Antonio Reeves, said he noticed the ball sticking at times and brought it up with teammates throughout the game. But the Cats — three days after dropping 27 assists in a 105-96 win over Georgia — never clicked.
Reeves was 1-for-7 from the field in that first half. So was D.J. Wagner, the three-time and reigning SEC freshman of the week. UK was 11-for-32 from the field before halftime. Rob Dillingham was the only Wildcat with more than four points at the break, and the 25 points marked just the second time this team had scored fewer than 37 before halftime all season. The other instance: 33 points in an eventual 80-73 loss to UNC Wilmington last month.
Calipari referenced that defeat after this one.
“We played a game this year where we had 40 possessions of one or no passes,” he said. “Now, we lost that game.”
He added that he would have to go back and look at the tape to see how many such possessions happened in this one. It’s going to be a hard watch.
Kentucky, one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country, was 2-for-10 from deep in the first half. Reeves hit a 3-pointer early in the second half — part of a personal seven-point flurry to give the Cats a little hope — but UK didn’t even attempt another 3 until Dillingham missed one with 2:17 left. By that point, Kentucky was down 16 points, and it was all but over.
“I guess they weren’t there,” Reeves said. “They were playing all our shooters up — up close and personal — and it just wasn’t there.”
Reeves said the Cats had driving lanes. Calipari lamented that — when his players did take it to the basket — they shied away at the first hint of contact, trying to score at odd angles or double-clutching with the ball instead of going right at the Gamecocks at the rim.
“I’ll say it again, if you get bumped and you shoot the ball like that, you’re not making layups,” he said.
Dillingham finished with a team-high 16 points. Reeves had 15 points. Tre Mitchell scored 13 points. No other Wildcat had more than four.
Wagner was 2-for-10 from the floor. Reed Sheppard had three points on 1-for-4 shooting — his only make a 3-pointer in garbage time — and ended with two turnovers and zero assists in a season-low 14 minutes.
Croatian sensation Zvonimir Ivisic struggled in his second career game, tallying three points, two rebounds and two blocked shots in just 10 minutes, three days after his stunning debut in Rupp Arena.
Fellow freshman Aaron Bradshaw battled on the boards — grabbing a team-high eight rebounds — but he again dealt with foul trouble, limiting his effectiveness at times.
“This is a great lesson for us. It’s a great lesson for a young team,” Calipari said.
This one also shot down a narrative that was forming around this team. Kentucky has struggled all season with its defense — and the Cats gave up lots of good looks again Tuesday night — but the offense was so powerful that there was a belief this particular group might just be able to outscore any opponent by March, no matter how much they gave up on the other end.
South Carolina surely put a stop to that talk.
“I guess people will watch that tape and say that’s how you’ve got to play,” Calipari said. “So we’ve got to protect ourselves somehow.”
The Gamecocks’ physicality held Kentucky to 62 points. The Wildcats’ previous low was 73, in that loss to UNC Wilmington. In every one of their other 16 games this season, they topped 80.
There will be bad shooting nights, even for this team. These Cats still have plenty to work on.
“It’s going to have to be tighter,” Reeves said of the defense. “We’re gonna have to be more together, more focused on the game plan. … They were more physical. They were gonna battle us. They were gonna try to punk us. And, you know, we got punked. So we just gotta go back to the drawing board and figure out what we gotta do for the next game.”
Next game
No. 6 Kentucky at Arkansas
When: 6 p.m. Saturday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 14-4 (4-2 SEC), Arkansas 10-8 (1-4)
Series: Kentucky leads 34-14
Last meeting: Kentucky won 88-79 on March 4, 2023, in Fayetteville, Ark.
This story was originally published January 23, 2024 at 10:55 PM.
