What this Kentucky basketball team needs, Michigan State will be there to provide
Kentucky basketball earned a pair of passing grades on its first two quizzes, but now it’s time for the good stuff, the real stuff, the revealing stuff. Tuesday night, the Cats face their first true test of the semester.
The occasion is the annual Champions Classic. The site is Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, the place where there was that NCAA Tournament game last March that we won’t mention. (Talk about Madness!) The opponent is Michigan State. Truth be told, here could not be a more timely foe for John Calipari’s club this early in the campaign.
“The next game we play is going to be a roughhouse game,” Calipari said Friday night after his pupils dispensed with Duquesne 77-52 to improve to 2-0. “Either you can play in a roughhouse game or you can’t.”
We need to see if these Cats can take a punch. And the Spartans are just the team to deliver the blow. You know Michigan State’s M.O. under Tom Izzo, the longtime and Hall of Fame coach who Calipari counts as a friend. Think Sparty basketball and you think hard-nosed, physical, basketball in pads.
“You’re going to have to work like crazy,” Calipari said of battling the Spartans on the boards.
Let’s be honest, Calipari’s last couple of teams have not been among his most physical. Last year’s club boasted Oscar Tshiebwe, a force under the glass. Outside of Oscar, however, the Cats were more lean than mean. They were pushed around at times, a sight that surely made Calipari’s skin crawl.
This year’s model appears to boast a little more brawn. Freshmen additions are one reason. Chris Livingston is a solid, physical presence. Cason Wallace is a fierce defender, a young player who isn’t afraid to body up an opponent. Then there’s the early surprise that is Ugonna Onyenso.
If the 6-foot-11, 225-pounder from Nigeria is relatively new to the sport, he’s a quick learner. Friday night, Onyenso scored nine points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked three shots in 19 minutes. What little he might lack in muscle, he makes up for in length. He’s a work in progress on offense, but a fearless one, as well. He even attempted a hook shot against the Dukes. It missed. But, as Cal said, he had the courage to try.
When told that Duquesne Coach Keith Dambrot predicted Onyenso would make a lot of money someday, Ugonna responded with an, “Oh, really,” as he comically tilted his head.
Even when Tshiebwe, the 2021-22 national player of the year, makes his 2022-23 debut, Calipari has to find Onyenso some clock. He’s too promising a project to keep glued to the bench for long stretches.
How UK’s newcomers will respond to the Spartan strongmen is another matter, however. Izzo is coming off a couple of down seasons — 15-13 in 2020-21 and 23-13 last season — at least by his lofty historical standards. Michigan State didn’t even crack the AP’s preseason top 25 last month. That might be just fine with the coach.
After all, playing on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in Coronado, California, on Friday, the Spartans took No. 2-ranked Gonzaga to the wire before losing 64-63 in the Armed Forces Classic.
“It’s no moral victory because you still gotta win games, you know?” Izzo told the Detroit News afterward. “But we did do a lot of things right.”
One thing: Michigan State’s perimeter defense forced the Zags to miss 14 of their 18 three-point shots. Meanwhile, Kentucky hit 22 of its 43 three-point attempts over the first two games. Those shots might be harder to find against the Spartans.
So what will Tuesday tell us about the Cats?
“It’s going to tell us a lot, honestly,” senior forward Jacob Toppin said. “It’s going to be a really physical game. We’re going to be able to see who’s able to play in a physical game. At the end of the day, we’re going to play our brand of basketball. We’re going to do what we do best and that’s run the floor.”
He added: “We need to grab rebounds, though, offensively and defensively.”
