Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s win over Louisville
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Game day: No. 19 Kentucky 86, Louisville 63
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Louisville in Rupp Arena.
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Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 86-63 win over the Louisville Cardinals on Saturday at Rupp Arena:
1. This was the Jacob Toppin Kentucky basketball needs
Jacob Toppin had lost his starting spot. Kentucky’s senior forward had scored a grand total of nine points in the last three games. He did not score a single point last time out in UK’s 89-75 loss at Missouri on Wednesday night. The Toppin stat line: Thirteen minutes. Three turnovers. No points.
Two days later, on Friday, UK head coach John Calipari told Toppin he was going to start the New York native against Louisville on Saturday. OK, said Toppin. Not good enough, said Calipari. Meet me back in my office. Toppin did and told the coach that yes he wanted to start, he wanted to prove what he could do.
And that’s the way athletic 6-foot-9 Brooklynite played against the Cardinals. Toppin was aggressive from the opening tip, scoring six of his team’s first 14 points. By the 9:44 mark, he had 11 points to help the Wildcats jump out to a 25-12 lead over the overmatched Cards.
By halftime, Toppin had scored 15 points as UK led 45-30 at the break. By game’s end, Toppin had scored a career-high 24 points. He was 10-for-15 from the floor and 4-for-6 from the foul line. He missed his only three-point attempt but contributed seven rebounds and two assists.
In short, he was the Jacob Toppin that everyone said in the preseason that Jacob Toppin absolutely needed to be if this Kentucky basketball team would reach its potential.
“Jacob Toppin is a good player, a high-level player who is capable of dominating a game,” said Louisville head coach Kenny Payne, the former Kentucky assistant. “We knew that coming in. We knew that he’d a struggled a little bit coming into the game, but it’s a rivalry game. He put us on our heels instead of us putting him on his heels.”
Can Toppin keep it up? That’s the next question. He admitted after the game that he has been through mental challenges in trying to meet expectations. Remember, this is the same Jacob Toppin that told us he was not going home for Christmas, that he wanted to be alone to get his mind right.
“We’ve done a lot of work,” Calipari said about not just Toppin, but the team. “And it’s not been on the court.”
2. John Calipari wants to slow the game down
At his press conference on Friday, Calipari hinted that he wanted his team to, well, sloooooowww down. The coach said he still wanted his team to take advantage of fast-break opportunities, but he pointed to the game scores of his more successful teams, games that were played in the 60s or 70s.
Saturday, Cal doubled up on that tempo change. He said he thought his team’s half-court offense was better. More passing. More swinging the ball from side-to-side. More players under control. More sets in which Oscar Tshiebwe was able to establish his presence in the low post.
“Now we get to slow the game down a little bit,” said an approving Tshiebwe after scoring 24 points with 14 rebounds. “We watched the film against Missouri, we were just rushing and everything. Now we slow down, we run the plays, we make the good shots. It was good.”
Does a slower pace help Oscar’s game?
“Absolutely,” he said. “We move the ball, pass to each other. It makes the game so easy.”
It is also true that once conference play begins, the game’s tempo has a tendency to slow down. Attempting to play at a fast pace, Kentucky went 8-4 with double-digit losses to Gonzaga, UCLA and Missouri. A slower pace requires better execution, however. We’ll see how a slower, more deliberate Kentucky team fares.
3. Remember, this UK win came against Louisville
Kentucky did plenty of good things Saturday. It shot 60 percent from the floor, including 53 percent in the first half. it had 18 assists compared to 12 turnovers. It outrebounded the Cardinals 33-20. It improved to 9-4 on the season.
But it also did all that good stuff against a Louisville team that came into the game ranked 257th by KenPom and is now 2-12 on the season. UK was a 23.5 point favorite and won the game by 23 points.
Louisville has certainly improved since the disastrous start to Payne’s first season as head coach. And the visitors scored the first seven points of the second half Saturday to slice Kentucky’s lead to 45-37 with 18:32 to go. After that, however, the Cards turned the ball over on four of their next five possessions. UK used the opportunity to push its lead back out to 51-37.
LSU comes to Rupp Arena on Tuesday night for UK’s SEC home opener. LSU is no Louisville. The Tigers are 12-1 under first-year coach Matt McMahon, the former coach at Murray State. They are coming off a 60-57 win over No. 9 ranked Arkansas in Baton Rouge. They boast one of the league’s best players in K.J. Williams, the 6-10 senior who followed McMahon from Murray State.
Next Saturday, Kentucky travels to Tuscaloosa to face Nate Oats and Alabama, who are 11-2 with wins over then-No. 1 North Carolina and then-No. 1 Houston. At Houston.
Can Kentucky build some momentum off the victory over Louisville? Or was Saturday’s performance just a product of the inferior competition?
“I’m looking forward to turning the page,” Calipari said while wishing everyone a Happy New Year. “Let’s go.”
This story was originally published December 31, 2022 at 4:03 PM.
