John Calipari put on a show after UK beat Auburn. The real scene happened out on court.
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Game day: No. 22 Kentucky 70, No. 13 Auburn 59
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Auburn at Auburn, Alabama.
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Following Kentucky’s biggest win of this college basketball season, John Calipari strolled into the cramped media room at Neville Arena and put on his own show.
“You were hoping to see something different,” Calipari crowed, without even sitting down at the postgame press conference table. “We have some people here that are there for a reason.”
Finally sitting, Calipari kept talking.
His No. 22-ranked Wildcats had just handled No. 13 Auburn, winning 70-59 in a game they never trailed. And doing it in an atmosphere as intimidating as any they’d faced all season.
Auburn students started camping out for this one pretty much as soon as the team’s last home game had finished. On that night, the Tigers decimated No. 11 South Carolina, running up a 101-61 win, getting points wherever they wanted against the team ranked No. 1 in the SEC in scoring defense.
Kentucky’s defense — maligned all season long — came into Saturday’s game at No. 104 in the KenPom efficiency ratings.
“What did you see today?” Calipari asked a room full of reporters, a few national college basketball writers making the trip to see this Top 25 matchup between league rivals. “Now what could you write? ‘They are so bad defensively.’ That’s a top-10 offensive team.”
Indeed, the Tigers were No. 10 in the country in offensive efficiency. And at Neville Arena, they’ve been unbeatable. Auburn had a 13-0 home record this season. Before Saturday. The Tigers had been 45-2 over their last 47 games in the building. In six SEC matchups heading into this weekend, they’d outscored their opponents by an average of 22.3 points, winning all six by double digits, including an 18-point win over SEC leader Alabama and that 40-point beatdown of South Carolina.
Kentucky’s coach, still in full “Swaggy Cal” mode, pointed out that his Cats had just held a top-10 offensive team to 30.9% from the field and 18.2% from 3-point range.
“I don’t know,” he said, the sarcasm flowing at this point. “I guess we could do better.”
“Did you see I went zone one possession? Just to do it?” the UK coach continued. “And the reason it works — we don’t know what we’re doing. So how the hell can you prepare for something where we don’t even know where we’re gonna go?”
When the floor was finally open for questions, Kentucky’s defense was a hot topic.
The Wildcats, who had drifted outside the top 120 in those KenPom defensive efficiency ratings after a home loss to Gonzaga last weekend — the team’s fourth defeat in six games and third straight in Rupp Arena — showed signs of something else in a gritty, 75-63 win over Ole Miss on Tuesday night. UK moved up about 20 spots in the defensive ratings after that one.
Shortly after the buzzer sounded Saturday night, the Cats were at No. 81 in the country.
“Nobody believed that we were going to win the game,” sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso said. “Nobody really believed in us. So we came into the game with nothing to lose. That was the mindset we came into the game with. And we told ourselves that if we really want this, we can get it. It all depends on ourselves.
“The coaches can talk however long they want to, but if we don’t lock in defensively and play as one — if we don’t trust each other — then we’re not going nowhere.”
To Onyenso’s point, the Wildcats were nine-point underdogs, according to some betting lines, on this road trip. They took the lead for good with 17:50 left in the first half, and the margin never got within one possession for the final 36 minutes of the game.
Kentucky’s defense held Auburn’s offense to its lowest scoring total of the season, and — while the Tigers did miss some open shots — coach Bruce Pearl gave most of the credit to the Wildcats.
“Kentucky can guard,” Pearl said. “And they can turn it up when they want to. And they outplayed us tonight. They played really well.”
Calipari especially praised Onyenso and Adou Thiero on that end of the court. Onyenso had just two blocks — eight fewer than his record-setting total in Rupp on Tuesday night — but his developing reputation as a shot-blocker is now making opponents think twice about bringing the ball his way.
“But you got Adou in there doing the same kind of stuff,” Calipari said of his defensive presence.
A question about whether Kentucky had switched up its ball-screen defense — a point of failure all season — was quickly dismissed. “No. It’s been the same,” Calipari said.
Kentucky’s coaches — and some of the players — have been talking for weeks about how this team hasn’t played up to the scout defensively, especially in ball screens, often getting out of position, ultimately leading to breakdowns.
Calipari talked after the Ole Miss win about his players wanting to put more pressure on the ball defensively. He let them. And with Onyenso on the back line protecting the rim, the approach has worked wonders over the past two games.
“Their ball pressure disrupted us,” Pearl said. “… Their ball pressure from their guards really wouldn’t allow us to get the ball in places on the floor that we kind of needed to to be able to execute our offense.”
Calipari has questioned his team’s physicality all season. Pearl said Kentucky played so physical Saturday night that there were a couple of plays he plans to send to the SEC office.
“When kids get challenged about not playing hard and not playing physical, well then they go out there and play hard and play physically,” Pearl said.
A question about Auburn missing open shots was disputed by the team’s coach.
“No, I give Kentucky more credit for that,” Pearl said. “I would give their defense more credit for that. … Kentucky disrupted us. Their length at the rim obviously disrupted us. Their ball pressure disrupted us.”
And then, the kicker.
“I really think you just go, ‘All right, Kentucky guards like this, they can beat anybody.’”
Oh, and the offense is still pretty good, too, even if it did manage only 70 points Saturday.
The Cats are still seventh nationally in offensive efficiency. They’re still top five nationally in scoring.
And on Saturday, every time Auburn mounted a comeback attempt and got the Neville Arena crowd going, Kentucky had an answer. In the most important moments, it seemed to always be Antonio Reeves offering the response.
The Tigers cut UK’s lead to five twice midway through the second half. Both times, Reeves answered with a bucket. When he hit a layup to give the Cats a 64-48 lead — their biggest of the game — with 6:05 left, it capped a 15-4 run for Kentucky and left the home fans groaning with discontent. Reeves had 11 of UK’s points in that run. He finished with a game-high 22.
Thiero added 14 points, eight rebounds and some highlight-reel dunks. Onyenso had seven points — going 3-for-3 from the field — and grabbed 11 rebounds to go with those two blocks. The 7-footer played a game-high 36 minutes, never subbing out in the second half.
Calipari took a grand total of five questions. He pivoted the fifth question into an advertisement for Kentucky’s record-breaking seven players in Sunday night’s NBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis, noting that he would be there in person to see his former Wildcats and their families.
When that plug was finished, Calipari slapped the table that he’d been sitting at for barely six minutes and headed for the exit.
“And look at this crowd,” he said before getting up, feigning amazement at the standing-room-only scene. “I can’t believe all these people are in here. All right, I’m gonna go. Because I’ve gotta get to Indianapolis tomorrow.”
Next game
No. 22 Kentucky at LSU
When: 9 p.m. EST Wednesday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 18-7 (8-4 SEC), LSU 13-12 (5-7)
Series: Kentucky leads 92-28
Last meeting: Kentucky won 74-71 on Jan. 3, 2023, in Lexington
This story was originally published February 17, 2024 at 11:08 PM.
