Kentucky basketball found a different way to win. ‘This is going to be a turning point.’
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Game day: No. 22 Kentucky 75, Mississippi 63
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Mississippi in Rupp Arena.
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It wasn’t the prettiest display of basketball, but for John Calipari — and anyone else who suffered through the shortcomings of Kentucky’s season so far — what took place in Rupp Arena on Tuesday night sure was a sight for sore eyes.
The Wildcats, so used to putting up points by the bunches, instead battled their way to a 75-63 victory over Ole Miss, snapping the first three-game losing streak in the history of the building and avoiding the program’s first four-game home skid in nearly a century.
Offense has rarely been this team’s problem. It sure wasn’t over the last three games in Rupp. On those nights, Kentucky scored 91 points against Florida, 92 points against Tennessee and 85 points against Gonzaga. And the Wildcats lost all three times.
Defense was the issue. UK gave up an average of 95.3 points over those last three home games, and Kentucky’s work on that side of the ball has ranged from serviceable to stunningly bad all season long.
This game offered another big test. Ole Miss came into Rupp at No. 30 nationally in offensive efficiency and No. 10 in the country in 3-point shooting, the picture of a team that has ripped Kentucky’s defense to shreds over the past few months.
This time, the Cats fought back.
“The pressure,” Calipari blurted out, interrupting a question on what he liked about this defensive performance. “We weren’t backing up. It’s something that I just said, ‘Look, the start of games are bad for us, because we’re back.’ We can’t be that way.”
For pretty much the entire night, these Wildcats got into the Rebels, giving ball handlers little space to operate and little time to think. Kentucky’s hands were quick and active. Open shots away from the basket were hard to come by. Calipari’s message to his players: Whatever you do, don’t let them shoot.
Often enough, the Cats were able to funnel Ole Miss’ players to the bucket, where the wrong side of a record-setting night was waiting for them.
Sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso blocked eight shots in the first half alone. He finished the night with 10, breaking the previous record by a UK player in the building — shared by Sam Bowie, Willie Cauley-Stein and Andre Riddick — and matching the Rupp record set by Navy’s David Robinson (one of the greatest big men in basketball history) back in 1987.
That was part of the plan, too.
Kentucky’s players out near the perimeter put on the pressure. UK’s bigs underneath took care of business when the ball came their way. It’s a recipe Calipari has used to ample success in his tenure at UK, but one that hadn’t quite clicked — to this degree, at least — with this bunch.
“That’s a big thing,” Reed Sheppard said of the active, physical D. “Think, if you’re backing off someone, you can make as many moves as you want. But if you’re pressuring, you get a little uncomfortable, and you don’t feel as confident making moves or doing what you need to do.
“Now you can go up and pressure and know that — if you get beat — there’s a great chance of it getting contested or blocked. And they’re never just going to have an easy layup.”
Sheppard had five steals. Onyenso had the 10 blocks. Aaron Bradshaw had two more. Others poked balls loose, got the Rebels off balance and filled passing lanes for deflections.
“I thought Kentucky was aggressive,” Ole Miss coach Chris Beard said.
His Rebels shot just 37.5% from the field and 22.7% from 3-point range. They scored only .863 points per possession, just the eighth time Kentucky has held an opponent under 1.000 — the Cats are 8-0 in those games — and the best opposing offense, by far, to be limited to that degree.
Antonio Reeves was UK’s leading scorer with a mere 15 points. The more impressive stat: his team-high seven rebounds, an area in which he’s picked things up this season, taking it upon himself to crash the boards with greater gusto for the good of the team.
Calipari had another message to his team before this one.
“They are not getting an offensive rebound in the first five minutes of this game,” he recalled telling his players, a growl in his voice. “Do you hear me?”
They must have. No Ole Miss player came up with an offensive board until nearly seven minutes in. Four UK players had defensive rebounds before that, and the Rebels had just two offensive rebounds in the first 15 minutes of the game.
The “connectivity” that Calipari and UK’s other coaches have talked about so much — something that has been so lacking all season — was there for most of Tuesday night, the Cats’ defense working as one, rather than five disjointed parts.
“Trust is what we need in our team,” Onyenso said. “Being together, playing for one another defensively. We’ve got all we need offensively. We just gotta come in, lock in and play defense like we did today. Hopefully, this is going to be a turning point for us as a team. This is going to be a breakthrough for us. If we keep playing the way we’re playing, we’re gonna get more wins like this. … We’ve just gotta trust one another.”
This possible turning point didn’t come without some trepidation.
Tre Mitchell made his return from a two-game absence due to a back injury, slotting right back in the starting lineup, and — according to Beard — providing the spark that helped Kentucky jump out to a double-digit lead by halftime.
“I think Tre Mitchell is one of the best players in college basketball, in my opinion,” Beard said. “He’s not a stat-sheet guy, but there’s no denying the poise and kind of the composure he gives this young, really talented team. And so I thought — especially the first half, where, from our perspective, the game got out of hand — I thought Tre did a good job just doing what he does. He’s a veteran player. Makes plays.”
Mitchell’s return meant that Kentucky played at full strength for the first time this season, which is now 24 games old. That distinction lasted a little less than 24 minutes before Mitchell left the court favoring his shoulder, heading back to the UK locker room before the first TV timeout of the second half, not to be seen by the Rupp Arena crowd again.
Calipari said after the game that Mitchell was headed to get X-rays on his shoulder, offering no update beyond that. Kentucky’s schedule called for an off day Wednesday before a return to practice Thursday and a game at No. 13 Auburn two days after that.
Mitchell’s status, obviously, will be closely watched.
In the meantime, his young teammates celebrated what they saw as a possible breakthrough.
“We have the parts that we need to be a good defensive team, and we’ve proven that we can,” Sheppard said. “We just have to lock in every day and get better and keep working on it. And in the games, we’ve just gotta stay confident and stay talking and communicating. And be physical.”
It’s what Calipari has been preaching this whole season, which looked so promising up until the previous three weeks, when the Cats dropped four of six games, three of them at Rupp, and went into Tuesday night looking to avoid the program’s first four-game home skid since 1927.
The Kentucky coach also raised eyebrows earlier in the week by saying that this team is “built for March” — an odd assertion at a time when the season seemed to be heading south in a hurry. He doubled down Tuesday night, explaining what he meant.
Such a team can’t score in the 60s and keep on advancing, Calipari said.
“You gotta be able to score points. We can do it.”
Such a team needs a player who can go off in an NCAA Tournament game and carry his team.
“We have a couple of those.”
Such a team can’t be turnover-prone.
“We’re a low turnover team.”
The issue, Calipari repeated, is whether these Cats can be physical enough. With Mitchell back in the lineup, D.J. Wagner and Adou Thiero getting back to full health, and Onyenso manning the middle, he thinks this team can check that box.
“Now … four of your top eight are physical players,” Calipari said. “They’re gonna bang. That was one of our issues.”
He said the Cats still need to work on getting to 50-50 balls, grabbing 50-50 rebounds, and continuing to find that defensive connectivity.
“The hardest thing to be is what we already are,” Calipari said.
Simply put, there aren’t many — perhaps there aren’t any — teams that can score like this Kentucky team can score. Calipari needs his players to do the other things on top of it.
On Tuesday night, they did.
“If we don’t get more physical when we play. If we don’t improve our defense. If we don’t come up with 50-50 balls. Tough rebounds. Then it doesn’t matter,” he said. “All of the stuff I told you right there — what kind of skill does that take? No skill. Do you want it or not?”
And then Calipari pointed over to the other side of the table, a big smile on his face as he thought about this team’s unmatched offensive potential.
“What about this stuff over here?” he said, talking out the side of his mouth, adopting the tone of a cartoon character. “Ooooo, that takes skill.”
And then he placed both hands underneath the table and gestured to illustrate what else it takes.
“You know,” he said, a grin on his face.
Next game
No. 22 Kentucky at No. 13 Auburn
When: 6 p.m. EST Saturday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 17-7 (7-4), Auburn 19-5 (8-3)
Series: Kentucky leads 97-23
Last meeting: Kentucky won 86-54 on Feb. 25, 2023, in Lexington
This story was originally published February 14, 2024 at 2:04 AM.
