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It was not good, but Kentucky managed to win a win over the unassailable Arkansas Razorback at home Tuesday night.
During the game, Kentucky was followed by up to 15 players by a Razorback team that arrived at the Rupp Arena in the midst of a five-game losing streak.
The first half was one of the worst that the Wildcats have played all season. Kentucky scored just 28 points, while PJ Washington and EJ Montgomery went into trouble early. Tyler Herro scored 12 goals, but that was not enough to keep Kentucky close, with the Razorback taking an 11-point lead in the half.
For the first parts of the second half, it was more or less the same. Arkansas continued to control the game at both ends of the game and extended its lead by 15 at one point.
Kentucky has not retreated. Herro, playing on an injured ankle, wore the Cats with a high goalkeeper 29 points and lockdown defense while the Cats completed the comeback and won by a final score of 70-66
Nick Richards also had great success for the Cats as he captured 13 rebounds.
After the match, John Calipari and some players met the media to recap their win.
Here is a summary of what they had to say via UK Athletics:
John Calipari
Q. What about Nick Richards?
JOHN CALIPARI: I was happy for him. In the first half, he was not very good. In fact, he wanted to go out. I said you would not go out. Understand this. Stay in the game. Second half he was good. He had three rebounds with one hand. He drifted this way, which cost him three rebounds, but he was 15. He could have had 18. I mean he just reached out and he escapes. One of them got the ball on the baseline. But he will just need time to solve this problem. He must work there. Not anyone else. He must understand it. No mud fight. You are not good at that. You are thrown to the ground, you look bad, you look awkward. When he moves his feet and uses his length and reaches and goes and frees himself from being in a mud fight match and just goes and gets balls he is very good.
EJ (Montgomery) had a hard time today, so it was nice that Nick plays. Let me tell you this before you start. Arkansas deserved to win the match. We fought in the second half and did enough to win the match. But you have to pay tribute to them, because those kids, I mean, shot 50% of the three. Now you have to understand the last five games, they shot about 25% of the three. So they came here and played. They also defended, they also fought, they drove the ball, they went to the rim. We just had a run in the second half and beat them. But they deserved to win this game. But I'm happy for my team.
Q. All along the way back to the Bahamas, you talked about Tyler Herro's bragging. I wonder how this affects his type of player and does each team need someone like that?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, you know that he has sold 25 points today. By three. He gave up like the first 11. He had a lot of courage to defend himself. I went out, I said I can not, we can not win if you are scored each time. He said, well, let someone else keep the guy. It's good. Then you will go out. You will not play another position. You come. But he made baskets when things collapsed. We seemed to have never played against the area. I mean, it was like we passed him and shot the ball with four seconds to go to the zone. And again, let me tell you this: we have all these freshmen and we have not played so much against the area. Second half I thought we were much better. I could not get them to drive the ball. They think you shoot three, they are in the area, so we'll shoot three. Drive the ball. And when they did that, we improved. But he played well. He was 9-10 from the floor. He only shot 10 balls. I did not know. I did not know that he was 29. I'm looking at this for the first time. Sensational. 9-10. I should probably have shot more bullets, huh?
Q. (Tyler did) 52 of his 53 free throws. I think it's almost 94% on the line, which would be a school record. At what point is it a luxury to have a guy like that at the end of the games?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, he and Immanuel (Quickley), and it's funny, Keldon (Johnson) at the end of the game will get there and for some reason, he'll miss shots, but at the end of the game, he will do them. So we have a lot. And I tell you another guy who does not miss at the end of a match, Ashton (Hagans). If you look at the last two minutes of a tight game, we get a big percentage.
Q. You had 12 turnovers in the first half and you really tightened up in the second half. What was going on there?
JOHN CALIPARI: We were late on everything. We have not seen any gaps. We were not prepared for the next room. Loose with the ball. EJ went after two balls with one hand to start the match. A hand. And it escaped him, what they all do. And so you start that way and you start with turnarounds and that's sort of, we did it. In order for us to play as we did in the second half, we still dropped 15, I think, 14 or 15. And then, let's go back and play as we did the rest of the match with emotion. The crowd entered the game and really helped us. Thank God we were at home. If we were on the road, they would have probably beaten us by 25.
Q. When you arrived, what changed for you on the defensive?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, let me say this. Do you know how many turnovers they had to half? I had never seen it before. One. Do you know what that means? They are just playing against Washington's generals. They move it and do whatever they want, do it and do whatever they want, and they have a turnover. Never heard that. At least against one of my teams, I have never heard of it. And so in the second half, they really only had six, but we only had three. So we became more aggressive, we had our intensity, our fight jumped and good bounce and some other stuff. But you look at their stats, 14 assists, seven laps. 10 out of 20 from the three-point line. It's great for them.
Q. Coach (Mike) Anderson has stated that it is a high priority to close PJ (Washington). Can you comment on his piece and what he was doing tonight?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, the thing that bothered me and that was missing five free throws. It was last year. It was not this year. It was last year. That's what he did. Most of that was, again, the intensity of the game. When we needed baskets from him, I went to see him. Late in the game, facing the area in which we had launched, he made a great pass to Nick, he clinched the hook to be in the center. The drive where they called a walk, I thought it had been hit or pushed. I wanted to have him on the line, I wanted him to make those shots. But he's fine. He fought. He had two blocks, so – but I'm happy for Nick, 15 rebounds and three blocks. Sensational. How about that
Q. Mike AndersonPress conference after the game, he has spoken several times of arbitration. You shot twice as many free throws as they did. How do you count for this?
JOHN CALIPARI: I'll tell you right now the season, the whole season because we're driving the ball and because we're showing the ball, I want you to hear this, my friends, we're doing a lot more than the other teams. We make more free throws than the other teams even shot. So, if it was officiating, they did it all year. Because that's what we do. Why do we do it? Because we do not shoot three. We fly the ball, we show the ball, we get a lot of things at the rim. That's what we do. That's how we play.
Q. How important is a game of this type when it comes to March, get the best, the best shot of the team and still be able to handle it?
JOHN CALIPARI: The only thing I told them, if they play like that in the first half, they'll fall 20 in an NCAA tournament game and you will not be able to come back because when you do a ride , the other team is pretty good team, that's the reason they are in the tournament, they will make another round at home and you will always be 18 years behind. You'll do one trick and carry it to 11, think you're there, they'll make two three, you're down 17, that's the ball game, and your season ends. So, how we started the game, again, it's just, we can not be this team, especially when the other teams will play as Arkansas played. They will come and play well.
Q. Keldon had 14 shots. Is this the kind of shots you want, what would you like him to have?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, there was a couple where he should have made passes and we told him that. They collapsed on defense. But what we were trying to get him to do in the area was to catch the ball near the center or catch it anywhere at a distance of 15 feet and drive it to the center of the area . Because one or the other will open or the float that he can win, he shoots, then we have two types near the edge that can bounce. That's what we started doing in the second half. We put it in a position to do it. There were probably, I'll guess two of those he should have gone through. But the rest of them were very good shots.
Q. Every time your team started playing well this year, you talked a lot about saying hungry, stay humble. Was that the problem of tonight?
JOHN CALIPARI: Yeah. Obviously we did not think that – you know, and I'll be honest with you, maybe I was like that. Look, they will go where I will take them. They will go there, they will feed on me and maybe that was me too. Maybe I've looked at that and said, we had a breath here before – yeah, we had a breath, 11 and a half seconds, 15 minutes, it was Yeah, it was a real breath. Once again, I really want to train these young children, they look for me, tell us what to do, tell us where we are going, tell us what to do. And they answered. Now we have not played well in the first half, but we are good enough to do it in the second half. And again, do we have a guy who does not play. Do we have a guy not playing? Oh, Reid is not playing. Does not he play?
Q. He missed the last two games.
JOHN CALIPARI: Wow. Did you know we have a guy who does not play?
Q. I think you have some of your own superstitions, but do you have a group of superstitious people? Some of your players change shoes when they do not play well in the middle of the game. Tyler made it early, I think Keldon changed at halftime. Do you think it's weird or –
JOHN CALIPARI: I think they have onions. I do not know. There are two things I do not look at: I do not look at shoes, I do not care what they wear, and I do not look at tattoos. So, if you ask me who of my team wears tattoos, I would not know. Does anyone have tattoos?
Q. A few, not a lot.
JOHN CALIPARI: I would never have a tattoo, I do not like needles. So I would not do tattoos.
Q. I think Tyler was on (Isaiah) Joe to start the game and then Hagans seemed to keep him a bit more content. What did not Tyler do and what did Ashton do?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, what Tyler did most importantly was that he could not keep it. So the kid had 11 of their first 13. And if he would have – if he would have stayed on him, Tyler, he probably would have – what's the balance sheet here? 41? What is the record? He probably would have had a nice 46 if Tyler stayed on him. So we had to change and then Ashton did not want to go out, like, I'm good. And then we said, why do not you let Immanuel keep it for a minute, give you a breath? He said, no, I got it, let me keep it. So I do not know what he scored the rest of the game, but he had 11 in the first three, four minutes.
On what changed in the second half …
"Attack simply, stay in attack mode as soon as I catch the ball and when they collapse, I'm just looking for my teammates with the kick out."
In preparation for the after season …
"We know what lies ahead. We have a big game ahead, but every game is a big game. We will prepare and be blocked. We know we have to fight each other on Thursday, have a very good practice session on Thursday and Friday and leave for the game on Saturday. "
On the game in the first half …
"It was frustrating, I mean we could not touch anything in the first half and they hit everything, but we knew we had to stay together and everything would be fine for us."
Nick Richards
His feelings towards his 15 rebounds in tonight's match …
"It was really good being on the court, playing with my teammates and going out with a W. It was a lot of fun tonight."
If he prefers to make a comeback like tonight or have a length in advance like the last match …
"We just like being ahead, but we just like playing basketball in general. We like to compete with other teams. Apart from that, it's really awful that we've been in this first half. We just fought and went out with a W.
On what coach Calipari said in the locker room at halftime …
"Be better with basketball. He took us. He asked us all to improve with basketball. I had two turnovers in the first half; it was just stupid mistakes. You know, going out of bounds, I did not even see the line. So, just stupid mistakes like that.
Tyler Herro
On what he said at the free throw line …
"I am a bucket."
On what kind of confidence does he bring a line of free throws …
"I feel like it's going to go every time I take a free kick."
How much he and his team are superstitious and if he changes shoes halfway …
"Well, Keldon always changes shoes every time he does not succeed and I think the floor slips a bit with my other shoes, so I changed shoes."
About what Calipari said about his defense …
"He was on me for my defense but I thought I was playing pretty well."
Lit if this game was considered a breath …
"No, not really, I think we just started slowly, they were playing louder than us and I felt like they wanted more in the first half, but we picked up our momentum in second. "
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