One month in, Cats have played just about perfectly
November 26, 2014
By Nick Gray
Back in August, before the Cats’ 100-pound coats were distributed to players, sophomore forward Marcus Lee sat down in a chair in the Joe Craft Center gymnasium during this season’s first media opportunity.
He refused a Gatorade, because mere mortals on other teams accept electrolytes from their drinks. This team, at least through the last game in November, has not been merely mortal.
Lee smiled, as he seems to do a lot no matter if its the media, his family or his friends, and answered a question about UK’s potential with his unique honesty.
“We’re looking to kill people,” he said. “We’re going to try and be one of the best teams around here.”
It was a statement Lee made last season about the freshman-laden Cats’ chances. That team learned how to play a lethal brand of UK basketball in the second week of March. How long would it take for this season’s team to find its formula to win?
Evidently, UK has figured out how to win lethally before Veterans Day. And it has not let go of that formula thus far.
Consider that UT Arlington, whom the Cats beat by 48 points on Tuesday, shot 27 percent. The Mavericks’ shot-making abilities fell right on top of the Cats’ defensive average of 27.9 percent for the season. Tuesday’s thrashing was just about average for UK’s six-game November stretch.
“We want to lock teams down and we take pride in it,” freshman guard Devin Booker said.
December will bring a much more difficult stretch for the Cats, though one that does not seems outrageous enough that UK could indeed whip five Top-25 teams in 28 days, starting with Providence on Sunday along with Texas, North Carolina, UCLA and Louisville.
“We’ve got hard games that we’re going to have to play 40 minutes, so I can’t come out in this game and say let’s play 30 (minutes) and let’s stop playing,” Calipari said about the next month. “We’ve just got to finish (blowout games like Tuesday) out, and I’m rooting for (opponents) to make baskets half the time.”
If UK pulls into January without a mark in the loss column, then the 100-pound coat could double.
” Coach (Joe B.) Hall told me when I said the 100-pound jacket that coaches wear that 100-pound jacket too, and you’ve got to deal with all that same stuff,” Calipari said. “I am going to have to keep this team engaged all year.”
In regards to what we have seen one month in, the Cats have faired quite perfectly. The next four weeks will say a lot about how perfect UK can be.
