South Carolina didn’t want to press UK. That would mean getting into a running match, and not many people can win a running match with the Cats.

But then South Carolina found itself down by 20 points and had no choice but to press. UK, however, wasn’t bothered and broke it fairly easily. Let’s look at two consecutive plays, early in the second quarter, where UK beat it in two different ways:

PLAY 1: Passing through the Press

South Carolina sets up its press after a made basket, and sends two guys at Marquis Teague to trap him behind his own free throw line. Teague has to pick up his dribble in the center of the court.

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Teague pivots and finds Doron Lamb coming back to the ball on the bottom of the screen. Lamb gets the pass with space (and an equal amount of UK players as South Carolina players) in front of him. The press is breaking, and it was initiated by Teague’s willingness to give the ball to someone else rather than trying to slalom through the press himself.

“Instead of him trying to beat it, he was letting us try to beat it, and that’s the difference,” Calipari said.

Lamb takes off, and South Carolina is already scrambling. The defender on Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (positioned at half court) is stuck between trying to come up on Lamb and staying home on Kidd-Gilchrist.

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Lamb passes the ball up to Kidd-Gilchrist, who turns and sprints. UK has numbers. Oh, who’s that near the far right edge of the screen? Anthony Davis, free on the other side of the basket? You know where this is heading.

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Yeah, that’s where. College’s “Lob City” is in Lexington, not L.A.

“We’re hard to press,” Calipari said. “Every guy can handle it, and at the end of it, we’ve got Spiderman under the basket that you can’t leave.”

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PLAY 2: Dribbling through the Press

This next play starts with an inbounds pass to Kidd-Gilchrist, who swings it to Lamb, who swings it to Teague on the sideline. You can’t see those first two steps, but you’ll have to trust me. They really happened.

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Teague takes a proactive approach. Knowing the double team will be coming, Teague takes off toward the center of the court as four South Carolina players converge on his position. That’s a smart approach, if you’re trying to tackle Teague.

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This isn’t football, but Teague still makes like a running back burning the secondary. He somehow ends up beating the two defenders who were coming AT him, leaving a 4-on-1.

Teague, in this play, used his speed to just beat the press. That may not be as deft as passing through the press, but it can be effective. He is rather quick, after all.

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Teague gives up the ball to Terrence Jones, flying in (literally, check out his arms) from the top of the screen.

Unfortunately for the Cats, Jones didn’t finish. The pair got caught between a shovel pass and a lob. The finish has to be worked out, but the important thing is that the press was beat.

For UK, its ability to beat the press will be important because it will likely hold sizable leads over multiple opponents throughout the year. And because it can beat the press, it makes getting those leads (by avoiding the sluggish starts that have continued happening) all that more important.

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