By Les Johns | Follow @KernelJohns

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Archie Goodwin had 22 shot attempts

Goodwin led all scorers with 32 points, but also led in shots attempted. This became a point of contention when Goodwin missed Julius Mays ahead of him on the break in the second half to score himself, earning derision from UK head coach John Calipari.

“Julius was out ahead of him, and he drove it by him and shot it, and that’s unacceptable here,” Calipari said. “I wasn’t really happy. I let him know.”

Goodwin said he was fine with the scolding he received from Calipari.

“Coach Cal got on me for that. As far as a dunk, it was not about that. It was about trying to create a team atmosphere, and passing the ball ahead because he would want the same thing for me.”

Mays tried to help Goodwin through the situation.

“I told him not to worry about it. Let him (Calipari) yell at you,” Mays said he told Goodwin. “The play was over — you scored. You can’t let that affect you the rest of the game. I told him I wasn’t mad at him as long as he scored.”

The teams combined for 13 blocks

If they play together, Nerlens Noel and Willie Cauley-Stein will make it tough for the opposition to get shots off on the inside.

Wednesday night, they played against each other and had a combined 12 blocks (Noel with seven, Cauley-Stein with five). Freshman forward Alex Poythress added one.

“We have only been working on defense for a week,” Cauley-Stein said. “I know we have a practice tomorrow and it’s a whole defensive practice.”

For his part, Calipari was unimpressed — turning the scheduled 6:30 a.m. practice into a defense-only workout.

“If we played against each other, we’d be pretty good, but since we have to play other people you don’t know,” Calipari said

when asked about all the blocks.

Eight Cats scored in double-figures

Calipari said a month ago that he felt he had at least seven different players who could lead the Cats in scoring in any given game. The Blue-White game seemed to back up that assertion.

Jon Hood (17 points) and Jarrod Polson (13 points) hit double-figures, Nerlens Noel (9 points) did not.

How much of the balanced attack is a statement of the team’s offensive potential and how much is due to the team being behind defensively?

Well. . . Calipari specifically called out Kyle Wiltjer for his defensive effort against Jon Hood.

“Kyle’s going to have to defend better,” Calipari said. “Jon Hood had his way with Kyle.”

Calipari said the team needs to better learn how to play team defense before they can scrimmage more in practice.

“They don’t know how to stance, they don’t know how to close out yet,” Calipari said. “They don’t know how to rotate, their spacing and timing is so bad, that if you let them just play you’re telling them it’s okay to play that way

“Now whether that’s right or not, we’ll find out, but I think you’ve got to stop them. Make them play more the right way.”

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