Everything John Calipari said after UK basketball knocked off Tennessee in Knoxville
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Game day: No. 15 Kentucky 85, No. 4 Tennessee 81
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Tennessee at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn.
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John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats will enter the postseason riding a big wave of momentum.
UK has now won five straight games following Saturday’s 85-81 statement win at No. 4 Tennessee.
Now at 23-8 overall and 13-5 against SEC opponents, Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament profile got a major boost with the win over the rival Volunteers. UK also now has a double-bye for the SEC Tournament: The Wildcats won’t play until Friday’s quarterfinals and will be the No. 2 seed for the event.
The Wildcats will play the winner of No. 7 seed Texas A&M and No. 10 seed Ole Miss in the tournament quarterfinals on Friday night.
Kentucky led for the vast majority of Saturday’s game and survived a furious last-minute comeback attempt by the Volunteers — which included a shot that could have tied the game with less than 20 seconds left — to hold onto a marquee road win.
Another high-scoring result in Kentucky’s favor saw freshman guard Reed Sheppard and fifth-year guard Antonio Reeves both go for 27 points.
Reeves has now scored 20 or more points in seven straight games, the longest such streak by a UK player since Jamal Murray in 2016. He also led Kentucky in rebounding on Saturday with seven.
Sheppard, who scored 22 of his points in the second half, entered Saturday’s game as a 51.2% 3-point shooter. Remarkably, that mark has gone up after Sheppard went 7-for-10 on 3s in Knoxville.
In total, the Wildcats went 15-for-29 (51.7%) from long range.
Saturday’s win also kept a season-long trend going for the Cats: UK won the rebounding battle, 42-37, over Tennessee, and Kentucky is a perfect 15-0 this season when winning or tying the rebounding battle.
On UK’s pregame radio show, Calipari talked about employing a strategy of forcing Tennessee players not named Dalton Knecht to beat Kentucky.
The former Northern Colorado guard went for a whopping 40 points against the Wildcats, but all other Tennessee players went a combined 14-for-45 (31.1%) from the field. Knecht’s 40 points were the most by a Kentucky opponent since Texas A&M’s Elston Turner in January 2013.
Consider that a game plan executed to perfection.
Afteward, Calipari met with media members in Knoxville to recap another road win over the Volunteers and discuss other aspects of Kentucky’s late-season surge.
Here’s everything Calipari said.
Opening statement
Two really good teams battled it out. You know, they’re veteran players, and I told Rick (Barnes), Rick and I talked last night and I said, ‘The thing about your team, it doesn’t matter what the score is, they think they’re going to win.’ And then after the game that’s what I told him, I said, ‘I told you that.’
They’re down nine and then all of a sudden they’re figuring out how to try to win, that’s a veteran team. We were trying some different things, (Dalton) Knecht went absolutely bonkers on us. The plays that bother me were the 3s because we were saying, ‘Make him bounce it.’ When the guy backs away or doesn’t run through.
But, Justin (Edwards) was really good for us. Ugo (Ugonna Onyenso) was really good for us. I don’t play guys with two fouls in the first half. Fourteen minutes to go in the first half Robert has two fouls. Now, you kind of see why.
(Dillingham) stretched the game out. He made the plays that got us up double digits. And he doesn’t have to play thinking... No, he’s fine. He’s got two fouls. He can play basketball now.
And I told him, if you don’t want that to happen, don’t foul. Don’t reach in. Don’t get underneath a guy when he comes down on a shot. And you’ll stay in.
So, but he was good. Antonio (Reeves), I just thought, again, a great rebounding team and we out-rebounded them. We fought. But again, they won the (SEC) championship. I told Rick, what a job he did with this team and think of the gauntlet he played?
The last four games, the end game was us. And we’re playing better. We’re healthy now. Tre (Mitchell) is not all the way back, but at least he can play.
So, it was a good game.
Question about if Calipari told his players about the importance of winning to securing a double-bye in the SEC Tournament.
No. You know the only tournament that matters to me. After this weekend, that tournament. So no, we never discussed it. I don’t even know if they know.
But I did tell them after the game, since you won and we’re going to get a bye, I’ll give them the rest of today off, and then Sunday and Monday, they get three days off. (laughter).
Question about Ugonna Onyenso setting a defensive, physical tone despite not attempting a shot in the game.
And the biggest thing was, he rebounded. How about Antonio Reeves being our leading rebounder? Reed (Sheppard) with six. Ugo gets six. Justin Edwards gets six.
We had a lot of guys, we just had to fight. This is one of those games, everybody’s got to be in the fight. You can’t leak out. You’ve got to battle, you’ve got to hit first. They’re a veteran team. Very rarely do they lose here...
Question about Reed Sheppard coming through in the second half for Kentucky.
People who are really following us know, (in) late-game (situations), he’s kind of... He plays late game like it’s early in the game. But that’s why he is who he is. So, my choice is, I may just have to take him out in certain stretches. Because, I kept telling the guys ‘Two timeouts,’ and we’re still throwing balls, not crossing half court.
The one with under a minute, whatever, I should have called timeout. And I was yelling at them and to the officials, but they didn’t hear me. So that’s on me.
He will make free throws. How about the 3s today he made? And understand, Tennessee won the championship. This game, at the end of the day for them, was, it’s a Kentucky game which they want to win, but it wasn’t a life-and-death thing.
For us, our kids played. Competed.
Question about Kentucky’s offensive firepower.
It doesn’t matter how I feel. I hope they feel that way. As long as they pass the ball to each other. Again, we had 16 turnovers. That’s not who we are. We only had 12 assists.
I thought there were times where Antonio held the ball, held the ball, we haven’t seen that all year. And I told him, ‘If you can’t get a shot... Throw it to somebody, see if they can.’ What I keep telling these guys, whoever you throw it to, can play.
So you don’t have to... Just throw it to them. Let them make a play. And so, but again I’ve got the youngest team in the country, it’s coming together, but it’s the youngest team in the country.
And there are times, did I have five freshmen out there? At times? And even if you say Ugo, Ugo reclassed. So he might as well be a freshman. He just turned 19. So we were pretty young, with Antonio being the veteran. And he played really well.
Question about Justin Edwards’ improved play over the course of the season.
I told Tom (Leach, UK radio broadcaster), we were walking and I said I know there were people who said, ‘You should take him out,’ ‘He’s not this,’ but I believed in him and I told him. And the greatest thing for me, he said, ‘Coach, I believe in you.’ I said, ‘Kid, just keep working.’
And it doesn’t always crack on your time. Sometimes it takes more time. The biggest thing with young kids, they’ve got to be their biggest cheerleader and the only way you can do that, you can’t be phony with yourself. You’ve got to be a guy that lives in the gym.
If you’re phony, then it won’t help you. You’ve got to be your own cheerleader. When things don’t go right, ‘I can’t believe I missed it, but I’ll make the next one.’
What (Edwards) is giving us at that position, is a 6-8, and now we play four guards, and he’s 6-8. Antonio is 6-6.
This story was originally published March 9, 2024 at 7:33 PM.
