Cats learn from slow start against Miami of Ohio

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UK head coach John Calipari got exactly what he wanted — a scare that forced his team to play from behind.

With just over seven minutes remaining in the first half on Monday night, Calipari and his Cats were staring at an 18-point deficit to a Miami of Ohio team that was fresh off an 11-point defeat at the hands of Towson.

Freshman forward DeMarcus Cousins came alive in the second half after playing only four minutes in the first half of the Cats' 72-70 victory over Miami of Ohio on Monday night. Photo by Britney McIntosh | Staff

“We need to get down 10, 12, 15 to see where we are,” Calipari said. “I said it on radio, I said it on TV, I said it. I wish it wasn’t 18, but it was what I wanted and I wanted to see what we did.”

After seeing their score doubled to the tune of 18-to-36, the Cats’ defense stepped up en route to holding the RedHawks to three points in the final 7:04 of the half, exactly what Calipari wanted.

Absent for much of that half was freshman forward DeMarcus Cousins. For the second straight game, Cousins started for the Cats, but played only limited minutes after getting into early foul trouble.

Calipari said if a player picks up two fouls in the first half, they can expect to sit on the bench for the remainder of that half. It only took Cousins four minutes to pick up that second foul and have to watch as his teammates fell behind.

“I just have to get my motor going early,” Cousins said. “A lot of times, I guess you could say I play laid back or whatever it is. I’m just going to try and come out with a different approach.”

Cousins called that laid back approach a bad habit from high school. He responded in the second half against Miami of Ohio by scoring 10 points and grabbing 10 rebounds in 15 minutes of play and picking up only one more foul.

The Cats can also hope to build on the second half performance of sophomore guard Darius Miller. After receiving countless compliments and praise from his teammates and Calipari during the offseason for his fit into the Dribble Drive Motion offense, Miller went scoreless in his first game of the regular season.

He responded by scoring seven points in the second half against Miami of Ohio on 3 of 4 shooting with a lot o­f the credit going to a critiqued shooting stroke from Calipari.

After watching Miller on tape and in practice about two weeks ago, Calipari said he noticed Miller was leaning backward while he shot the ball. After finally pointing it out, Miller’s shot has improved and he is now jumping more vertically  and keeping his head straight, rather than leaning back.

“I was shooting kind of short when I was fading back,” Miller said. “Now it has more arch on it and everything.”

With such a young team on his hands, Calipari said he’s having to do some things differently; one of those being how often they watch tape. In the last four years, Calipari said his teams would only watch five to 10 minutes of tape a day because they were filled with so many veterans. With this team filled with so many freshmen and inexperienced sophomores, Calipari said an hour of tape may be needed.

“You’re not going to be great at everything,” Calipari said. “… There is no such tea­m (that’s great at everything). You’re going to be good at some things and not so good at other things. And most of us attack the guy’s weaknesses. Where aren’t they real good? Like I said, I’m still trying to figure these guys out.”