Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s stunning home loss to South Carolina
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Game day: South Carolina 71, Kentucky 68
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and South Carolina in Rupp Arena.
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Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 71-68 loss to South Carolina on Tuesday night at Rupp Arena:
1. John Calipari: ‘We lost the game in the first half’
Kentucky and South Carolina entered Tuesday night’s SEC game under similar circumstances. Each had their clocks cleaned the Saturday before. Kentucky lost 78-52 to Alabama in Tuscaloosa. South Carolina lost 85-42 to Tennessee in Columbia. Three days later, only South Carolina played like the team ready to make amends.
First-year coach Lamont Paris watched his Gamecocks rocket to an early 13-2 lead. By the 13:09 mark, the advantage had grown to 21-6. GG Jackson, South Carolina’s fab freshman, had scored eight points. Hayden Brown, a transfer from The Citadel, had scored seven points. Kentucky had managed all of three field goals.
Meechie Johnson took it from there. The Ohio State transfer went bombs away, throwing in three-pointers from High Street on his way to 16 points in the first half. The 6-foot-2 guard from Cleveland finished with game-high 26 points. He was 9-for-16 from the floor, including 6-for-10 from beyond the arc.
“It was one of those nights, man,” Johnson said afterward. “Hopefully there are a lot more nights like this.”
“You have to give all the credit to South Carolina,” UK’s CJ Fredrick said. “They were ready to play.”
But why wasn’t Kentucky ready to play? The Cats were coming off a 26-point drubbing at Alabama. They were back home. They needed a win to even their SEC slate at 2-2.
“If we weren’t ready to play, look at me,” Calipari said.
Kentucky wasn’t ready to play.
2. Oscar Tshiebwe calls out his teammates
The Cats began the game without senior forward Jacob Toppin, who injured his shoulder at Alabama. Then the Cats lost freshman starter Cason Wallace, who left the court and went to the locker room and did not return.
“He told me had back spasms,” said Calipari, who added that Wallace has had that issue at times.
Still, said the coach, “We were undermanned, but that doesn’t matter.”
Meanwhile, here’s what Oscar Tshiebwe said, “We have to fight. Even if we have to put the walk-ons in, we have to play guys who will fight.”
The Cats did fight back at different times in the second half. Down 51-41 with 15:22 left, they pulled to within five at 61-56 with 8:32 left. Five minutes later, however, South Carolina had pushed the lead back out to 69-58 with 3:55 remaining.
UK made another run, scoring 10 straight points to cut South Carolina’s lead to one at 69-68 on a Fredrick three-pointer with 51 seconds left.
But Kentucky didn’t score again. Once again, late game execution failed. After South Carolina’s Jacobi Wright made two free throws with 31.2 seconds left for a 71-68 lead, UK’s Sahvir Wheeler turned the ball over when his pass back out off penetration was picked off.
And after the Gamecocks fumbled the ball out of bounds after a timeout with 20.2 seconds left, UK couldn’t get the ball to drop when first Fredrick and then Antonio Reeves missed three-pointers.
“I would like to have won the game, but we didn’t deserve to win it,” Calipari said. “We tried to steal one.”
3. The season is getting shorter by the day
In his postgame press conference, Calipari once again said it is a long season and he just needs to figure some things out to get his team right.
My question: Is there a sense of urgency that at some point the team’s play has to turn around or it’s too late?
“Today,” Calipari said. “Today was a sense of urgency. You just have to keep marching.”
That’s true, but Kentucky is now 10-6 overall and 1-3 in the SEC for an unhappy fan base what has watched its beloved Cats go 9-16 in the COVID season, lose to Saint Peter’s in the first round of last season’s NCAA Tournament now lose at home as a 19.5-point favorite against a 7-8 South Carolina team.
It was just South Carolina’s third win at Rupp, and first since 2009.
“Stick with these kids,” Calipari said when asked about the fans. “If you want to be mad, be mad at me. … If the fans are mad, they should be. We lost at home. I expect them to be mad.”
The coach also said this: “We’ve got to be better than this, and that’s on me.”
The clock’s ticking.
This story was originally published January 10, 2023 at 10:25 PM.
