Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s surprisingly tough win over Vanderbilt
Three takeaways from Kentucky’s 71-62 win over Vanderbilt on Wednesday night at Rupp Arena:
1. Life without Nick Richards is not good
UK’s junior center and SEC Player of the Year candidate picked up his second foul and a seat on the home bench with 16:34 left in the first half. At the time, UK led 9-6 and would soon extend it to 11-6. After that, however, the Wildcats were outscored 29-17 the rest of the first half.
“We need Nick,” UK Coach John Calipari said. “We can’t have him get dumb fouls.”
In fact, Richards is now so vital to the Cats’ Cause that Calipari broke one of his own rules by sticking the 7-footer back in the game in the first half with two fouls. When that didn’t change matters much, Calipari put the center back on the bench so he wouldn’t get his third foul.
The second half, thankfully, Kentucky got the full Richards. He scored 15 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to finish with 15/11, another double-double. He also helped the Cats outscored Jerry Stackhouse’s visitors 43-27 as UK improved to 6-1 in the SEC. Vanderbilt dropped to 0-7 in league play, and in doing so set a conference record with its 25th consecutive league loss.
2. Calipari declares this is now a player-driven team
“Which is unusual this early,” said the UK coach in his postgame press conference.
“It’s usually around the tournament time when we’re player-driven,” Richards said.
In fact, Calipari said he wants to “kiss on the lips” the officials who tossed him out of the game in the second half at Arkansas. After that, the players took over and rolled to a win over the Razorbacks at Bud Walton Arena. That carried over to the overtime win at Texas Tech last Saturday.
Then when the Cats were down seven at the half to the lowly ‘Dores on Tuesday, Calipari said he didn’t peel the paint oft the locker room wall at halftime. He told the team it was up to them. If they wanted to play harder, they would get back in the game. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t.
“An assistant went nuts, but I didn’t,” Calipari said.
Kentucky played harder and smarter. In fact, it was Immanuel Quickly who told Calipari he would set a back screen to free up Richards for lob passes from point guard Ashton Hagans. Do it, said Calipari. It worked not once, not twice but three times down the stretch as the Cats put the Commodores away.
“Immanuel pointed me and people thought I did it,” Cal said of the play. “I didn’t. Immanuel did.”
3. Now comes an important road trip to Auburn
Last Saturday in Lubbock, Richards mentioned in the postgame press conference that the team enjoys playing at Auburn. The crowd is right on top of you. And fired up. And loud. Plus, the Tigers are pretty good (17-2) again after knocking off Kentucky in overtime of last year’s NCAA Midwest Region finals.
After starting the year 15-0, Bruce Pearl’s Tigers hit a slick spot, losing 83-64 at Alabama and 69-47 at Florida. They appear to have righted the ship since, knocking off South Carolina 80-67 and Iowa State 80-76 before rallying to beat Ole Miss 83-82 in overtime in Oxford on Tuesday night.
LSU improved to 7-0 in the league by beating Alabama on Wednesday night. But the Cats (6-1) and Tigers (5-2) are right behind. Kentucky is ranked 13th. Auburn is ranked 17th.
I agree with Nick Richards. Saturday should be a lot of fun.
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 10:23 PM.
