Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s loss at Missouri in SEC opener
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Game day: Missouri 89, No. 19 Kentucky 75
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Wednesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Missouri in Columbia, Mo.
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Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 89-75 loss to the Missouri Tigers at Mizzou Arena on Wednesday night:
1. Right now, UK is a team and a coach without a clue
Kentucky wasn’t just beaten in its SEC opener, John Calipari’s club was soundly beaten, down 12 points (42-30) at the half and by as many as 21 points (84-63) after the break. In fact, only once in the second half did Kentucky trail by single digits (56-47 with 12:48 left) while dropping to 8-4 overall and 0-1 in the SEC.
Missouri is the opposite. Missouri knows what it’s doing, what it’s trying to accomplish. Now 12-1 overall and 1-0 in conference play, Mizzou was the more aggressive and confident team from start to finish. Emphasis on confident. Fresh off a 93-71 thumping of rival and 16th-ranked Illinois last week, the Tigers were more than ready to show their sellout crowd that impressive performance was far from a fluke. Under new coach Dennis Gates, Mizzou plays with a freedom and assertiveness that Kentucky lacks.
In fact, it’s safe to say the Cats right now are a mess. They are 1-4 away from Rupp Arena with losses to Michigan State, Gonzaga, UCLA and now Missouri. Their one road/neutral site win was over Michigan in London. And it’s not getting better. Kentucky on Wednesday night looked no better than the Kentucky that scored just 53 points in a 10-point loss to UCLA at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 17.
True, UK played a bit better offensively than it did against the Bruins in New York, but the Cats could do little to stop Missouri’s high-tempo offense. The winners shot 49.1 percent for the game, including 50 percent in the second half. Missouri was 10-for-25 from three-point range and outscored UK on fast-break points 17-8. And the Tigers committed just eight turnovers.
UK also had no answer for Kobe Brown, Missouri’s 6-foot-8 forward who followed his 31-point performance against Illinois with 30 points against the Cats. Brown was 10-for-18 from the field, including 4-for-8 from three-point range.
2. So far, John Calipari has failed to figure it out
John Calipari has used different starting lineups, different substitution patterns, different strategies and different tweaks, but so far nothing the Kentucky coach has tried has worked.
In fact, you have to wonder if Calipari has tried to do too much. He never seems to stick with a lineup, or a combination. He never seems to let players play through mistakes. Instead, it’s back to the bench for another stab at a different lineup. At one point during the broadcast, SEC Network color analyst Dane Bradshaw said, “I’m not sure Cal has anyone left he’s not mad at.”
In fact, I’d contend that at this point that outside of Oscar Tshiebwe and Sahvir Wheeler, few others on this team know their roles or the head coach’s message.
True, I’m not a Basketball Bennie, as Calipari contends, but I have no idea what Kentucky is trying to accomplish in its half-court offense. To the untrained eye, the Cats appear to be doing a lot of dribbling without a whole lot of expert passing.
Calipari is certainly not getting through to Jacob Toppin. The senior forward was touted as a key to the Kentucky season, an athletic player who had matured and was ready to show the NBA what he could do. A dozen games into the season, Toppin has lost his starting job. He played 13 minutes on Wednesday night. Three turnovers. Zero points.
3. The competition is only going to get tougher
Saturday’s Kentucky-Louisville matchup at Rupp Arena looked like a cakewalk for the Cats considering the way Kenny Payne’s Cardinals have struggled. Now, we’re not so sure. Who knows?
The following two Saturdays, Kentucky travels to No. 8 Alabama on Jan. 7 and No. 7 Tennessee on Jan. 14. Given the way the Cats have played when not feasting on cupcakes at Rupp, things could get really ugly really quickly. (If they haven’t already.)
It doesn’t help that the Cats have struggled on defense the past two games, as well. Florida A&M shot 52 percent against the Cats in Rupp on Dec. 21. The Rattlers made nine of their 16 three-point shots. Already up 42-30 at the half, Missouri made 12 of its 24 shots in the second half, including four of its 11 three-point attempts.
In my takeaways from the Florida A&M game, I wrote that this Kentucky team is just a collection of guys. It has yet to play like a team with any chemistry, togetherness or spark. Oscar Tshiebwe, who had 23 points and 19 rebounds, is obviously an excellent player. Cason Wallace, who scored 19 points Wednesday, is off to an excellent start in his college career. After that, however, this is a team unsure of what it’s doing. Blame that on the head coach.
This story was originally published December 28, 2022 at 10:25 PM.
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