Calipari has the talent on his team to go all the way

For a program like Kentucky’s–when it’s at the level it should be, as it is now–the basketball season is a little like running for the presidency. There’s a campaign phase and there’s a governing phase and they are two distinctly different challenges.

The campaign phase for a basketball team is the four months of the regular season when you attempt to secure a number one seed or something close to it. In the last 20 years, only once has the NCAA tournament champion not been among the top three seeds in a regional (Arizona winning it all as a four-seed over Kentucky in overtime in ‘97 is the exception).

The governing phase is the tournament. Once the campaign has positioned you with a high enough seeding to have a realistic chance of winning it all, a team has to be playing its best basketball in order to win the six games it takes to bring home the championship trophy.

For the Kentucky Wildcats, the second half of the SEC regular season and the three days they hope to play in the league tournament in Nashville are all about getting that piece of the puzzle in place. Barring a very unlikely collapse, Kentucky has put itself in position to be a one or two seed. Forget about the RPI for this discussion because if the Cats go into Selection Sunday with no more than three losses, they’re probably home free for a one seed. The reason is that the Big East teams figure to knock each other off a time or two and no other teams are going to have the resume it takes to get one of those four 1’s from the selection committee.

John Calipari knows he has the talent on his team to go all the way, but relying so heavily on freshmen is no doubt an uneasy feeling for any coach. That’s why I imagine you’ll hear him harping on a few key points down the stretch–cutting down on turnovers (50 in the last 3 games), limiting offensive rebounds (the big issue in the team’s one loss), the ability to get stops in a close game because that’s what leads to game-breaking runs more than great offense.

For more of Tom’s Big Blue coverage, go to:  http://tomleachky.com/

-Tom Leach

Clogging up the driving lanes: Wall will sort out the dilemma in time

So John Wall is frustrated and a part of the Big Blue nation is in a tizzy.

The advice here is this–relax and give this gifted young player a little time to work it out.

After Saturday’s 85-72 win over Vandy, Wall expressed a little frustration about how things have been going for him lately.  And that’s perfectly understandable.

In the season’s first month and half, Wall became college basketball’s next big thing, racing from end to end to make spectacular plays and taking over in close games to keep the Wildcats undefeated.  Now, he’s shooting under 40 percent from the field in SEC play and his turnover total has risen.

No doubt a big part of the reason is that opposing coaches began targeting their gameplans directly at the UK point guard.  Remember how Louisville sent two men after Wall to keep him from getting the quick outlet pass?

These guys know what they’re doing and they’ve decided that the best way to attack Kentucky is to slow down Wall and clog up the driving lanes with zones or sagging man-to-man defenses.

It’s perhaps the first time Wall has had to deal with more than beating his own man and his body language has suggested for a couple of weeks now that it’s bothering him.

It’s quite a compliment to Wall’s ability but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to deal with.   But the thing that we noticed about Wall in his short time at UK is that he’s not a prima donna.  He takes coaching, and given a little time, he will sort out this dilemma and make opponents pay for the way they play him.  It’s the punch and counter-punch that occurs at this level–and the next one.

 To check out more of Tom’s coverage of the Kentucky Wildcats, go to: http://tomleachky.com/

-Tom Leach

Calipari knows best for the young Cats…road trips ahead!

It was one year ago this week that Kentucky re-entered the Associated Press’ top 25. But the 24th-ranked Wildcats went to Ole Miss and lost 85-80 and in many ways, it started the clock ticking on the Billy Gillispie era as the UK basketball coach.

Today, the Wildcats are moving into the top spot in all of the major polls for the first time since 2003. It will end the longest drought between AP number one rankings for the Kentucky program since the March, 1970 to November, 1977 period.

And it will be interesting to see how the Cats handle this particular piece of prosperity.

Kentucky certainly rose to the occasion when it knew a win over Arkansas would get the team back into that coveted spot. Now, will they have regression when they take the number one ranking out for a test drive on the road?

South Carolina ranks as one of the worst defensive teams in the SEC and they have basically a one-man offense so one would have to like the Cats’ chances in this one, barring a complete meltdown of mindset. But the toughest part of the schedule lies ahead, with two games still left against Vandy and Tennessee and a road to Mississippi State among other stops.

One of the trendy debate topics for the moment is whether or not a loss or two would be good for a young team like John Calipari has. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t think there’s a right answer to that question for any team because every team is different.

Could the ‘78 Cats have still won the title had they entered postseason undefeated? What about ‘96? I think both would have, because they were the best teams. They also happened to be senior-dominated teams.

Could there be such a thing as a “good loss” for this UK team? Absolutely. But Calipari will know best if his team is starting to tighten up as the talk of perfection builds.

That’s why it’s good that the schedule is set up the way that it is this season. If the pressure of being undefeated does weigh too heavily on the Cats, then one or two of those teams they face from this point forward will take them down. If not, then I don’t think Big Blue fans should worry about it.

For more of Tom’s Big Blue coverage, go to:  http://tomleachky.com/

-Tom Leach

Defense is the new focus for the Cat’s and props to Calipari on Hoops for Haiti

For all of the offensive firepower Kentucky has, John Calipari has made it clear that defense and rebounding will tell the tale of how far this team advances in March Madness.

That’s why a current trend is a little worrisome. In the last four games–in which the Cats built big leads, lost them and then pulled away again to win–the opponent has shot a significant higher percentage from the field in the second half than the first.

At first glance, you might point to fatigue as the culprit but that would likely also show up in a dropoff in Kentucky’s percentage and that isn’t happening. Therefore, it suggests the Cats’ focus wanes when they seize control of a game and they let up a bit on the less fun aspects of the game, like defense.

That’s probably not all that surprising in terms of a young team’s evolution but if the Wildcats want to stay undefeated, they had better reverse the trend or they’ll be in that posture of learning from a loss. And Kentucky’s February schedule is considerably tougher than what they’re facing in January.

= = =

Kudos to coach Calipari for leading the “Hoops for Haiti” telethon and adding more than $1 million to the earthquake relief effort.

It would have been enough to lend his name to such a case, but he spent the entire day at the WKYT studios on Sunday, leading the effort. And he got tremendous support from his staff in spreading the word in the two days from the inception of this idea to its execution.

By the way, you can’t imagine what is involved in technical issues and manpower to pull off a TV project like this, so Wayne Martin and his WKYT team deserve a big pat on the back as well.

It’s great to have a basketball coach that has an undefeated team. But it’s equally great to have a coach that can see what’s going on around him and to be willing to mobilize the power of Big Blue to step up and serve a worthy cause–and to do in the middle of a season. He’s not the first Kentucky coach to do it but it’s commendable that he chose to do it and do it so well.

For more of Tom’s Big Blue coverage, go to:  http://tomleachky.com/

-Tom Leach

Cats are challenged by Steelers’ coach Mike Tomlin. And will they deliver another win against Flordia?

When things are going well for the University of Kentucky basketball program, you just never know when a celebrity might show up.

Saturday morning, at the pre-Georgia shootaround practice, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was there. Tomlin, who was attending the game at coach Calipari’s invtitation, spoke to the team at the end of practice.

Tomlin immediately pointed to the seven banners hanging on the walls of the Joe Craft Center and told the players they should not feel pressured by the expectations of a program like this but honored to take on the challenge. He noted that he walks by six Super Bowl trophies on the way into his office each day.

Then, Tomlin talked to them about Georgia being a division opponent. He told the Wildcats about how the Steelers dominated their division on the way to winning the Super Bowl in 2009 but this past season, went only 2-4 against those foes most familiar with them. He stressed the importance of sending a message to those kinds of opponents.

Tomlin’s talk was right on the money, but unfortunately, this young team didn’t seem to take it to heart. I thought the Cats were a little flat at the start of the game and allowed Georgia to gain confidence and the Bulldogs ended up making it a hard-to-come-by win for Kentucky.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of mindset this team takes onto the court in Gainesville tomorrow night. Florida has the three-point shooting ability to cause big problems for a UK team that has suddenly gone cold from the perimeter (four of 28 on three’s in the last two games).

The big question facing this particular Kentucky team is can it learn the lessons it needs to learn–one of which Tomlin was talking about–without needing a loss or two to drive the message home? Coach Cal has understandably said he hopes they can learn through close wins and we’re going to see that theory tested over the next months of the SEC season.

For more of Tom’s Big Blue coverage, go to:  http://tomleachky.com/

-Tom Leach

Cats triumph Cardinals after a rough start, pulling together with John Wall’s “un-freshman like” abilities.

I don’t think the first half of Saturday’s Kentucky-Louisville game was exactly what Dr. Naismith had in mind when he invented the game. It was ugly, overly physical basketball in an enviroment of hair trigger emotions.

Louisville did its best to rattle the young Cats mentally and they did everything they could to bother John Wall in his role as point guard. Add in a cold-shooting day from the perimeter and the intensity of a rivalry game and everything was in place for Kentucky to suffer an upset loss. The fact that UK dodged that bullet says a lot about the mental toughness of coach John Calipari’s team and that bodes well when looking ahead to March.

A few years back, when Rajon Rondo carved up Louisville, Rick Pitino raved about Rondo’s pro potential because of his ability to get wherever he wanted to go on the court. So Pitino wasn’t just blowing smoke in his postgame remarks when he compared Wall to the likes of Michael Jordan.

Wall has a very un-freshman like-ability to read a game and understand when he needs to make a statement with his play. That came Saturday when Louisville went ahead 42-41. Up to that point, Wall had not butted heads with Louisville’s strategy, but at the moment, he forced the action for just a few minutes, made two baskets and a pair of free throws and the game was able in Kentucky’s control. Not every championship team has a player capable of doing that, but those teams that have one are definitely championship contenders. And it’s why eventhough Wall still makes a few too many turnovers, everyone is talking about him as the national player of the year.

For more of Tom’s Big Blue coverage, go to: http://tomleachky.com/

-Tom Leach