Video courtesy of Courier-Journal.com
Kentucky Men’s Basketball
January 27, 2012
Pre-LSU Media Opportunity
UK Head Coach John Calipari
On LSU holding teams under 60…
“They’re big and their guards are good. (Anthony) Hickey is outstanding, tough, hard-nosed, they have two of him. They have their leading scorer, who is 6-5, back. Johnny O’Bryant who is a McDonald’s All-American, they have the kid from Iowa State that is 7-foot, he’s good. They have two other big kids; they are a very good team. The good news is, for preparation, they play a lot like Georgia, Mark (Fox) worked for coach (LSU head coach Trent Johnson). A lot of the stuff when we go over it we will have seen it. That’s why yesterday I didn’t use any time in our practice, usually I would say let’s hit their stuff a little bit, we did a few of the drills that match it but none of the walk-through stuff.”
On recruiting in-state product Anthony Hickey …
“It’s not about that, he’s good enough, there is no question but we took Marquis Teague. When you do that, unless you just want to load up on kids, here’s what happens, what if he comes here, maybe he is better than Marquis, maybe he’s not, and if he’s not and he’s not playing, is that fair to him? Maybe he would be good enough to beat out Marquis Teague, is that fair to Marquis Teague? I just think that when you go through this process of recruiting, I’ve made mistakes before. I remember when we played Connecticut and when I saw my man out of high school, I said he was too small, I’m not sure he is good enough. Guess what, he was good enough. Hickey is really good. I’ll same the thing, the other side of it is you take a guy that should be going to Western (Kentucky University) or Murray (State) and you just take him to take him when he could go there and be a starter and do x-y-z and you take him because you want to have a Kentucky kid on your team. I’m not doing that, I just refuse to do that. I’ll take walk-ons that way but I’m not taking a player that way, I don’t feel comfortable with that. Hickey is good enough, he is an SEC player and a starting point guard, I just saw him against Mississippi State make four 3s in a row to end the game. He’s not afraid, he could play here, there isn’t any question, he’s not afraid, he’s a battler, he is good.”
On Marquis Teague making the balance of the team work …
“Important but the one thing, this is a hard one for you all to understand, we have to keep working on making the extra pass. You say, ‘well Cal you have seven guys that have over 100 shots. There is no team in the country that has seven guys with over 100 shots.’ There isn’t one and here is what I would say, what happens is, because guys are only taking 10-9-8-11 shots, the extra pass becomes a little bit harder than it would if four or three guys are taking all your shots. We just have to continue to work on that, make that extra pass. The balance we have does make it difficult. Darius (Miller), offensively, he could go for 30, Kyle Wiltjer could go for 30, Doron Lamb could go for (30), you have a bunch of guys that could bust out for 30. Terrence Jones could go for 30, we just have to keep playing the game and whoever has it going, go to him, last game it was Darius and the guys found him and got him shot.”
On Marquis Teague carrying himself better than he was earlier in the year…
“What happens to these young people, if they don’t let you define them, let us kind of present you, define how you are going to play, when they are arguing the point they think they can play like they did in high school and when it doesn’t work it rattles them. Then they don’t know if they are if they are good enough, then they start questioning if they can play, well you can play but just not the way you are playing. That’s the hard thing, most guys have to get hit in the mouth and they say, ‘alright it ain’t working the way I want to do this, let me do this.’ Let me say this, every once in a while they will go back and check it to make sure they are right or wrong. They’ll go and have their kind of game and they’ll look bad again and you’ll say, ‘why did they do that?’ Because they just have to check and see if they can do it their way. Most of these players, they are letting us present them and define their games for them. All we try to do is play to our strengths, play to your strengths; we’ll work on your weaknesses in here but right now let’s do what we do. The biggest thing with Marquis Teague that he is doing better is he is defending and rebound, you all want to look at his offense, he is defending and rebounding. He’s not stopping, he is going in and getting balls, he had seven rebounds. He has seven rebounds we’ll outrebound the other team by double digits. But there are games he gets no rebounds and doesn’t even attempt, that is the old high school, I’m not going in there because if I go in there and they miss then I can’t get a lay-up so I’m going to just take off. It’s not just him; there are a lot of high school guys doing that.”
On being 3-0 in SEC road games …
“They have all been good games. Georgia came out and made six out of eight whatever they did. Tennessee came out and we were down in that game, Auburn came out and we were down in that game. They all come at us, they are all big games and the teams are going to play well. It’s good for us, it makes us better. I expect LSU to play a great game, I expect them to come out and play better than they have all year. (They will) be physical, run their stuff, execute, they’ll play fast but they want it to be, a lot of times you say they are holding people under 60, it’s because they are scoring a little bit over 60. A team that holds it can keep the other team from scoring more. If you are playing faster the other team is going to score more because they are going to get more opportunities. But they do a good job of controlling the games, similar to Georgia.”
On Kentucky being on its own level …
“You always want to be on your own playing field. One of the reasons we don’t have to talk about another program or I don’t even have to worry about who is recruiting a guy is because I don’t care. I tell the family when we come in, ‘you will not hear me or my staff talk about another program and if we do talk about another program it will be positive about that coach or that program.’ We don’t worry about anybody else, if the kid wants something like this then we will get him and if they look at this and say it is too much then they aren’t coming here. What you try to do in all that you are doing is separate so that you are on a playing field where you present yourself and ask the kid if it is something he’d like or not. In everything you do, whether it’s facilities, academics, in the community, social media, connecting your fans. I’ve said that since I’ve been here, you’re at Kentucky, let’s get this separated. Why are we on all these TV games? Because we rate so high, we rate highest in the country. Everybody wants to watch us.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Video: UK Coach John Calipari previews UK-LSU
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Kentucky vs LSU.....A Preview
WT Administrator
Kentucky vs LSU 1/28/12 Saturday 4PM (SEC Network)
Kentucky leads the series 80-24
LSU
Location: Baton Rouge, La.
Enrollment: 27,992
Arena: 13,215
Head Coach: Trent Johnson
Career Record: 208-170 (55.0%) 12 seasons
At LSU: 49-49 (50%) 3 seasons
2010-11 Record: 11-21
2010-11 SEC Record: 3-13
Postseason: None
2011-12 Record: 12-8
2011-12 SEC Record: 2-4
LSU 96 Nicholls 74
Coastal Carolina 71 LSU 63
Northeastern 88 LSU 82
LSU 76 Western Kentucky 57
LSU 59 Georgia Tech 50
South Alabama 79 LSU 75 (OT)
LSU 59 Houston 58
LSU 55 Rutgers 50
LSU 64 Boise St. 45
LSU 66 UC Irvine 59
LSU 67 Marquette 59
LSU 67 N.Texas 58
LSU 69 Grambling 37
Virginia 57 LSU 52
LSU 81 Ole Miss 55
Alabama 69 LSU 53
Arkansas 69 LSU 60
LSU 65 Auburn 58 (OT)
Florida 76 LSU 64
Mississippi St. 76 LSU 71
LSU Stats
PPG-67.0
FG%-40.6%
3 PT.%-33.4% (5.5)
FT%-70.7%
RPG-38.6 (+2.1)
APG-12.6
TO’s-13.2
SPG-7.7
BPG-3.7
Probable Starting Lineup
Justin Hamilton-C 7’0” Jr……………………………..14.1 PPG
Andre Stringer-G 5’9” Soph…………………………...10.4 PPG
Anthony Hickey-G 5’11” Fr……………………………9.6 PPG
Ralston Turner-F 6’6” Soph……………………………8.8 PPG
Storm Warren-F 6’7” Sr………………………………..8.2 PPG
Coach Trent Johnson first year at LSU was highly successful…..as he won 27 games….won the SEC championship….and made the NCAA. However, the past two seasons have been a disaster….LSU is 22-41 and 5-27 in the SEC. As expected, LSU fans are not happy and this season is important to coach Johnson.
LSU added transfer 7’0” Justin Hamilton from Iowa St. along with Anthony Hickey, Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball and they both have been a huge plus for the Tigers. Hamilton is the team’s leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker. In a recent game against Florida, Hamilton scored 27 points against the Gators. Hickey is off to a solid start as a freshman starter leading the team in assists and steals while scoring at nearly 10 points PG. Andre Stringer leads LSU in perimeter shooting hitting 36.6%.
Although LSU stumbled early this season with a bad loss to Coastal Carolina, the Tigers have played much better with wins over Georgia Tech, Rutgers and Marquette. Already, in SEC conference play, LSU has shown to be a much more competitive team than the past two years and have won both home SEC games.
Importantly, LSU has recently opened a new beautiful basketball practice facility revealing the schools determination to be a top level SEC team. This season, LSU will not be the pushover that UK found last season, but still lack the talent to defeat the Cats even in home friendly Pete Maravich arena.
Kentucky arrives in Baton Rouge fresh off a win over Georgia in Athens. The Cats played very well in the 1st half hitting 56% from the field and 60% from the perimeter.
Unfortunately, UK’s offense stumbled in the 2nd half scoring only 19 points….while shooting a pitiful 30% from the field.
Still, there were a number of positives in the Georgia game. It was great to see Miller, Lamb and Wiltjer shooting very well from the perimeter. In fact, kudos to Darius Miller who had a terrific offensive game scoring 19 points. Davis and MKG were both solid on the boards snaring 11 rebounds apiece….as UK dominated the boards. Teague did a nice job running the offense with zero TO’s.
Hopefully, the Cats can get Anthony Davis more involved in the offense…..as Davis played 39 minutes and had only two shots. Also, UK needs Teague to improve his shooting as he continues to struggle from the perimeter. Importantly,Terrence Jones is giving good effort on the defensive end and rebounding well, however, he still has work to do on improving his offense.
All in all, any road win is a positive, but UK still needs improvement on both offense and defense. The Cats should defeat LSU by 12 points.
GO CATS!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Photo of New UK Uniforms
Here's a better picture from the Nike web site, I still don't like it with the gray. Nike should have stuck with the traditional BLUE and WHITE..
New UK basketball uniforms
Mr.Nezzer
WT Executive Moderator
OK, from the picture I sure as heck hope they are not gray with just blue trim......I know the color is probably called platinum but no matter how shiny it is, it will still look gray. Sorry, UK's uniforms should be Blue and White.....period. They can make the uniforms out of recycled puppies for all I care just as long as the colors are Blue and White, the trademark of UK sports.
Another thing, why do they come out with new uniforms, mid-season, why not the start of the season??? I understand all of the elite PR crap but UK is already an elite team, they don't need super duper uper hyper charged fuel injected uniforms that are gray with just a hint of blue. Below is the release info on the new uniforms. Below is the release info on the new uniforms.
UK is one of nine schools who will get New Nike Hyper Elite Platinum jerseys, according to a release. UK will debut the jerseys at home against Tennessee on Jan. 31.
From the release:
The fabric of the Nike Hyper Elite Platinum shorts are made from 100 percent recycled polyester while the jersey fabric is made from at least 96% recycled polyester. Both short and jersey are tailored for the optimal efficiency of movement and are five percent lighter than the previous Nike Hyper Elite uniform. Featuring laser-cut bonded logos, a sharp platinum design as well as prominent accent colors, the Nike Hyper Elite Platinum uniforms are sure to shine on the court.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Video: John Calipari on UK's No. 1 ranking, trip to Georgia
Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari talked about the Wildcats being ranked No. 1 in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USAToday college basketball polls as well as previewing the team's trip to Georgia. Video courtesy of Courier-Journal.com
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