Calipari's had it up to here with bad 'D'
Posted: Thursday, November 19, 2009 8:42 PM
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SEC
Kentucky’s defense – or lack of – is killing John Calipari.
Three days after watching Miami of Ohio’s Nick Winbush hit 8 of 10 from beyond the arc and escaping thanks to John Wall’s late heroics, it was more of the same for the Wildcats against Sam Houston State on Thursday. Corey Allmond made 11 of 16 from deep and finished with 37, a Rupp Arena record. Kentucky still eked out a 102-92 victory, but it didn’t sit well with Calipari.
Ed Reinke/AP |
John Calipari gives his team directions.
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“If we don’t do better defensively folks, we are in trouble,” he said afterward. “Do you think we can score 100 against everybody? Because we’re going to have to. They are going to score 100 against us.”
Threes were the biggest problem by far. The Bearkats were 18 of 38 beyond the arc. Their 49.4 eFG% wasn’t that impressive, but was enough to irritate Calipari, whose team was sloppy (22 turnovers on 83 possessions? ouch) and did whatever it wanted on offense.
But that’s apparently all the ‘Cats care about.
"Our execution stinks right now," Calipari said. "It stinks because everybody's trying to get theirs."
The Lexington Herald-Leader has more along those lines, including video. It’s worth a listen to hear how exasperated he is.
"We need to get a little better rhythm. Our rhythm stinks right now,” Calipari said. “In other words, we race it up, that means shoot it fast. No! You race it up to try to put pressure on (the defense). So they all get in the lane, you pass, pass (to get an uncontested shot)."
The silver lining for Big Blue Nation is that the players realize they have to get better.
“Sometimes we didn’t bring it a lot on the defensive end and other times we just messed up on a lack of communication,” Daris Miller said. “We didn’t play how we wanted to.”
I know what practice is going to focus on the next few days…
Follow me on Twitter (@BeyndArcMMiller) and get more college basketball news at NBCSports.com.
