Road wins, although close, were needed victories

By Les Johns | @KernelJohns

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The blow-out win at Auburn was an apparition. Head coach John Calipari was right three weeks ago after the narrow win over Tennessee — a cellar-dwelling team in a reeling league.

These Cats aren’t going to “whomp” many teams.

“I can’t imagine this team being up 20 on anybody, because you get up 12-15 and someone will try to steal a ball, they will foul or leave their feet,” Calipari said after the game against the Volunteers on Jan. 15. “We are going to be in dogfights. This team is not capable of that (beating teams by big margins).”

They did enough last week, however, to close out two crucial conference road wins.

Tuesday night in Oxford, Miss., the Cats piddled away a 17-point lead in one fell swoop, allowing a 16-0 Ole Miss run to turn a whomping into a nail-biter.

The big run has been the bugaboo of this team all year. Louisville, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, Alabama and now Ole Miss have executed game-changing runs against the Cats.

When the Rebels’ run was just 6-0, Calipari called a timeout to stem the tide and set up the offense. Calipari likely didn’t draw up a play to set up a contested 18-foot jump shot by freshman guard Archie Goodwin with nearly 30 seconds left on the shot clock during that timeout.

If the Cats get a better look at the basket out of that break in play, and connect on the front-end of some 1-and-1 free throw attempts, the 16-0 Ole Miss run becomes more of a 12-6 “run” and the Rebels never get back in to contention.

Freshman forward Nerlens Noel was the savior Tuesday, however, erasing shot after Ole Miss shot down the stretch despite having four personal fouls, setting a UK record for most blocked shots in a game (12) and salvaging the Cats’ signature road win.

Saturday evening in College Station, Texas, the Cats led Texas A&M by nine at the half and had a chance to emphatically exact revenge for the upset home loss earlier this season when the Aggies’ Elston Turner Jr. dropped 40 against them at Rupp Arena.

Although the Cats never trailed, they also never extended the lead to put the Aggies out of their misery, allowing them to stay within striking distance the entire second half.

The Cats turned the ball over six times in the final 2:07 of regulation to give the Aggies a chance to get all the way back in the game.

“That’s where we are right now,” Calipari said about the turnovers. “They weren’t pressing. We were just throwing it away. We have a ways to go. Every experience for this team is to learn and move on.”

When Turner made a mid-range jumper with one second remaining in regulation, it sealed a Aggie 10-2 run and sent the game into overtime.

“Every game is a dogfight. The biggest thing is that when teams make a run at us, we just don’t have a swagger about us,” Calipari said. “As a matter of fact, we almost look defeated.”

The Cats executed defensively in overtime and made enough free throws to come away with the win. Turner scored 21 against the Cats defenders (primarily Goodwin and Julius Mays), but he worked hard for it, going 7-of-23 from the field and 1-of-7 behind the arc.

“We just played four or five on the road with this team. We survived and we survived without Willie (Cauley-Stein) playing much,” Calipari said. “We made many plays down toward the end that were incredible. Julius did a great job on Turner.”

The Cats failed to pulverize two road opponents, but they did pick up two much-needed victories. Ole Miss began the week at No. 16 in both polls, before dropping games to UK and Florida, giving the Cats their first win against a ranked opponent this year.

Next up for the Cats are home contests against South Carolina and Auburn, teams that have a combined 4-12 record in the SEC.

Is it whomping time now?