Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s win over Mount St. Mary’s
Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 82-62 win over Mount St. Mary’s on Friday in Rupp Arena:
1. We agree with John Calipari, his team made strides Friday
At least the Cats did in the second half. The first half, against a visiting team that hauled a 1-4 record into Rupp, Kentucky wasn’t exactly demons of domination. As has been the case of late. In fact, the home team led the Mountaineers just 39-34 at the break.
Second half, different story. UK shot 57.1 percent from the floor the final 20 minutes. The team that had scatter-shot its way to all of 21.3 percent from three-point range over the first four games, made five of 10 from behind the line in the second half and finished a respectable six of 15 for the game from three.
Up 41-36, Calipari’s Cats went on an 18-3 run to take a 20-point lead at 59-38. That included 10 consecutive possessions that included a Kentucky basket, including a pair of three-pointers from Immanuel Quickley, back from his one-game absence with a chest injury, and Kahlil Whitney, back after dislocating a finger and then popping it back in against Utah Valley on Monday.
“Never had that happen before,” said Whitney, meaning the dislocation and not the made three-pointer. The freshman then leaned over and knocked the wood on the platform he was sitting at for postgame interviews.
“We made strides tonight in the second half,” said Calipari, and given the fact UK outscored MSM 43-28, we’d have to agree.
2. Having EJ Montgomery back made a difference
OK, so the sophomore forward played just 15 minutes. He scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds. Still, having the 6-foot-10 Montgomery on the floor, along with Quickley, had to be a boost for a team that had not played any of its first four games with its entire complement of players.
Montgomery suffered an ankle sprain when he stepped on the foot of a Spartan in the second half of UK’s 69-62 win over Michigan State in the Champions Classic in New York. He had not played since. And Quickley sat out the Utah Valley game last Monday after suffering some sort of chest injury late in Sunday afternoon’s practice.
Nick Richards turned in another good game, scoring 19 points and snatching six rebounds in 33 minutes, which Calipari said was about five too many. Montgomery and Richards were not on the floor together a lot, but at least they were out there enough to get reacquainted with each other.
There’s no doubt that EJ is a big key to this team. He has a ton of talent. He just needs a little more toughness, something he can only develop by being out on the floor. And for a team that through the first four games exhibited a need for outside shooters, Montgomery was 1-for-1 from three-point range on Saturday.
“It felt good out there,” he said afterward, and for Big Blue fans it looked good to have him back out on the floor.
3. We get Calipari’s argument about scheduling, but …
After the game, the Kentucky coach was asked about his long-standing aversion to playing in the Maui Invitational, which takes place next week in Hawaii. The coach said it’s too far, something he’s said before. But then he ventured into explaining his philosophy concerning scheduling and why it’s important for fans to be in the stands at Rupp.
“We schedule for the benefit of the kids,” said the coach, arguing that he’s always going to have a young team, and a young team doesn’t need to play a bunch of top teams in the early part of the season. He joked that if the Cats started 1-5 he’s sure that’d be OK with everyone, right? (Probably not.)
Kentucky-Mount St. Mary’s box score
Cal then said that it was important for fans to be at Rupp and cheer on the young guys and build them up. And from his perspective, we get that. But that also sounds like an argument from another time, another era. Times have changed. We’ve said it a million times, but there are too many games on TV, too many other things to do. Used to be if you stayed at home, you’d miss the game. Or you’d have to watch it on tape delay. That’s not the case now.
And the season starts too early. We’ve seen that in the quality of play in these early games. And by starting so early, as Mark Story pointed out in his column, basketball can’t schedule on a traditional Saturday. It has to schedule games in midweek. Against a less than stellar opponent, not all fans are going to come. They’re just not. Friday night’s attendance at Rupp was better not because of the opponent, but because it was Friday.
Soon, football will be over, game dates will have more of a pattern and attendance will improve. But the days of Big Blue Nation filling Rupp to build up the team against so-so opponents are over.
This story was originally published November 22, 2019 at 10:55 PM.
