Hope for the postseason: Kentucky shows it has the will to find a way
Heading into the postseason, the best thing this Kentucky basketball team has going for it can be summed up in three little words:
Everyone else stinks?
Nope.
No clear favorite?
Nope.
Will to win?
Bingo.
How many times have we heard John Calipari say that this season? Nail-biter after nail-biter after nail-biter, the UK coach has tracked back to the fact that this particular edition of the Calipari collection has a fierce will to win.
And at no time was that more evident than Saturday in the Sunshine State. Playing the full 40 minutes without point guard Ashton Hagans, and the final nine minutes without leading scorer Immanuel Quickley, Kentucky found a way to overcome an 18-point second-half deficit and ambush the host Florida Gators 71-70 at a stunned O’Connell Center.
How did the Wildcats find a way? By not quitting, that’s how. They certainly had reasonable excuses to wave the white flag. They had already clinched the SEC title. They were without Hagans, back home for personal reasons. Quickley fouled out. Nick Richards missed six of his seven first-half shots. Calipari was nearly tossed by the officials in the second half. And hoping for a marquee Senior Day win to catch the wandering eye of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, Florida was riding the motivation mojo.
Or at least the Gators were until the 11:35 mark of the second half when Richards threw down the first of back-to-back jams. That ignited a stretch in which the Cats scored on 13 consecutive possessions to help the Cats dig out of that imposing 18-point hole. And the first of Richards’ two dunks came off an offensive rebound, symbolic of UK’s second half.
This is not Calipari’s best rebounding team. Far from it. Such is the price for starting three guards — Hagans, Quickley and Tyrese Maxey. With Hagans unavailable, Calipari started freshman forward Keion Brooks. And as a team, UK did its best offensive boardwalk of the season, corralling 42.5 percent of its missed shots, easily a season high. Nate Sestina grabbed five of UK’s 14 offensive rebounds. Richards snatched four.
No doubt the absence of Florida big man Kerry Blackshear (sprained wrist) the final 18:20 hurt the Gators’ cause. But Blackshear exited with Florida up 43-35. Even without the graduate transfer, Mike White’s team was able to extend the lead to 57-39 and 59-41 before the roof caved in.
And what is the prime characteristic of every good rebounding team? Effort, of course. Size, positioning and anticipation are great attributes, but they mean nothing without effort. And even when facing a large deficit without two of its best players, Kentucky put forth the effort to hit the boards.
In fact, the game’s winning shot was an effort rebound. When Brooks missed a shot in the paint, there was EJ Montgomery for the tip-in with 11.6 seconds remaining for a 71-70 Kentucky lead. And when Andrew Nembhard’s three-pointer went bounce, bounce, off at the final horn, Kentucky’s players did celebration sprints on Billy Donovan Court before dousing each other with water inside the visitors’ locker room as if they had won something.
And they had — their 15th victory out of 18 SEC regular-season games. Yes, 11 of the 15 came by single digits. And the Cats enter this week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville at No. 20 in the NCAA NET rankings and No. 28 in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted efficiency rankings. Computer darlings, they are not.
And they are not free of controversy what with the Hagans situation both odd and unresolved. At one point Saturday, Calipari said he expected to have his point guard back for the games in Music City. At another point, however, he said that if Hagans wasn’t ready, “we’ll go with who we got.”
Either way, here’s the most important thing this Kentucky team’s got — a will to win.
As Calipari keeps saying, if you have that, you have a chance.
SEC Tournament
When: Wednesday-Sunday
Where: Bridgestone Arena in Nashville
Kentucky’s opener: 1 p.m. ET Friday in quarterfinals against Alabama or Tennessee (ESPN)
