Is Kentucky ready for March Madness? Let’s run down the checklist.
Kentucky renewed its basketball birthright Saturday. In what John Calipari called a “rock fight,” the No. 8 Wildcats outlasted No. 15 Auburn 73-66 before a raucous Rupp Arena crowd of 20,638.
The victory made UK (24-5, 14-2 SEC) the SEC men’s basketball regular-season champion for a remarkable 49th time.
It also gained UK fans a measure of retribution on Auburn (24-5, 11-5 SEC), both for the Tigers’ 75-66 home-court victory over the Wildcats on Feb. 1 and for last season’s 77-71 overtime win by Bruce Pearl and Co. over Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight.
Immanuel Quickley battled through an off shooting night (3-for-10 from the field, 1-for-5 on three-point shots) to record a double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds; Tyrese Maxey produced a strong all-around game (17 points, seven rebounds, four assists); and Nick Richards overcame foul trouble to score 14 points to allow UK to fight off a determined, albeit cold-shooting (22 of 61 field goals, nine of 34 three-pointers) Auburn.
As the calendar turns to March, it’s now judgment time in college basketball.
Is Kentucky ready for the Madness? Let’s run down a checklist of UK concerns:
▪ Ashton Hagans’ point guard play. After a 10-game stretch in which the UK sophomore lead guard averaged a robust 3.8 turnovers a game, Hagans played 34 minutes vs. Auburn on Saturday and only lost the ball one time.
That was encouraging because Auburn had forced Hagans into a combined 13 turnovers in its prior two meetings with Kentucky..
Alas, Hagans also missed 11 of 13 shots Saturday.
Afterward, Calipari portrayed the glass as half full, saying that Hagans playing against a good team with minimal turnovers was more important for Kentucky moving forward than was his bad shooting day.
“I know Ashton went 2-for-13, but when he goes five assists, one turnover, three steals (his other numbers vs. Auburn) and defends, we will win,” Calipari said.
▪ Nick Richards vs. physical front lines. Even in a breakout junior season for UK center Richards, ultra-physical defenders have been a challenge for the 6-11, 247-pounder.
Austin Wiley, Auburn’s 6-foot-11, 260-pound wide-load, is the epitome of the kind of front-court player that has bothered UK’s Richards.
On Saturday, Richards got in early foul trouble. He also was not much of a factor on the glass with only three rebounds. But he pushed through early adversity and scored 10 of his 14 points in half two.
Said Calipari: “Nick’s got to know, we are going to get in there in March and somebody is going to say one thing, just go after him, physically push him, shove him, grab him out of the way and see what he does. He’s going to have to perform.”
▪ Scoring droughts. Kentucky has had a penchant for going significant stretches of games without making baskets. That cropped up again in the second half Saturday, as the Cats went from 14:29 (a Nate Sestina layup) until 7:07 (a Hagans steal and layup) without scoring one basket.
“I think everybody’s concern has been these scoring droughts,” Quickley said. “At Texas A&M (a 69-60 victory Tuesday night), we had one. Then we had another again (vs. Auburn).”
Before NCAA Tournament time, Quickley is proposing a major film study of what is causing Kentucky’s scoreless stints.
“I think we’ll watch film on all of these droughts, study even the little things, shot selection, screening, and see what we can do to fix this,” he said.
▪ Contributions from more than four players. The book on UK is that its core four, Richards and the three-headed backcourt of Hagans, Maxey and Quickley is stout. However, come NCAA tourney time, the question is whether anyone else can be counted on for Kentucky.
On that front, the Auburn game was encouraging.
Graduate transfer power forward Nate Sestina had 11 points off the bench. Freshman forward Keion Brooks played with verve and contributed four points and three boards in 12:39 of action. Starting power forward EJ Montgomery did not play as well as he did at Texas A&M, but he did have six rebounds.
“They are getting better,” Calipari said of his team’s supporting cast. “I mean, they are starting to believe.”
So as March beckons, how much hope should the Wildcats’ fans have of their team returning to the Final Four for the first time since 2015?
Kentucky is flawed, but good.
In the 2019-20 version of men’s college hoops, that might be enough to make some March magic.
You don’t have to settle for my opinion, either.
“I really like Kentucky’s team,” Auburn’s Pearl said. “… I don’t know of three better guards in the league or the country (than UK’s). What team has three better guards that play defense, that can score the basketball? They are hard to guard.
“So I think they are very undervalued. I’ll tell you right now, if we don’t play them again, I am rooting for them to go a long way.”
