Especially for head coach John Calipari’s Cats, it comes as no surprise that bringing in freshmen each year serves as a learning curb and an obstacle when facing off between highly ranked and championship caliber teams, all of which are ultimately out to perform at career highs in order to beat the No. 2 UK squad.
After an ugly first half with the No. 12 Kansas Jayhawks Tuesday, the Cats pulled off a win after recharging themselves for the second half.
During the first half, UK was missing shots, often carried the ball down the court themselves to shoot at inopportune moments, where the ball had chances to go into the post, and ultimately didn’t seem to have many plays set up to strike offensively.
“This is not a good team yet. We’re not bad, but we’re not a good team yet,” Calipari said. “We’ve got good players, but we broke off every play.”
The first half play resulted in switching out freshman point guard Marquis Teague for sophomore guard Doron Lamb.
Calipari has mentioned his concern for Teague learning to control the pace of the game and learning how to determine when to speed up, when to slow down, when to strike and when to pull back.
“Everybody walked in that game (Tuesday), they were gonna do their own thing,” Calipari said, “and they did.”
With the inconsistency of the first half, and perhaps along with the thrill of being in a venue like Madison Square Garden, UK struggled in the first half with each of them attempting to score on their own rather than developing plays to get the ball in the post to score points.
The problems faced with a young point guard will be improved only by experience.
“I always tell Marquis he needs to control the ball (and) listen to coach…” Lamb said, “Let the game come to you.”
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