Notable among those required improvements: negate physical play and learn to crush, not simply beat, opponents.
Check and check. It appears UK has shifted into fifth or sixth gear in the last five games. Its wins have come by 13, 24, 25, 34 and 20 points.

“I was happy with how we played,” Calipari said Saturday.

And it’s happened because every player has been doing their job in every game (see chart, left, for key improvements). That was another thing Calipari had been waiting to see. Two or three players would show up for games, but never five or six. Now, they’re concurrently clicking.

Pretty telling: when asked about Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Calipari not only complimented him but applauded Anthony Davis, then Marquis Teague, then Doron Lamb, then Darius Miller.

“You’re always just in a bind personnel-wise on the floor,” Florida head coach Billy Donovan said.

Donovan, and the rest of the SEC, are in a pick-your-poison mode, especially with every player consistently turning in good games.

Marquis Teague has made the most improvement. The point guard has cut down on his shots and started running the team. Calipari has again turned a talented freshman and made an effective floor general out of him.

“I feel like I’m the leader of the team,” Teague said. “I’m the point guard, I have the ball 85 percent of the time. I know I have to make the right decisions.”

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist continues to come up in big games. As Davis said, there’s just something about the freshman that makes him shine whenever the game means more. It goes beyond the numbers, too. His energy is infectious, and the rest of the team thrives off his presence on the floor.

“He reminds me of Derrick Rose,” Calipari said, “in that he’s tougher on himself than I am on him.”

And Doron Lamb has provided an element of outside shooting that takes UK’s offense to another level. Donovan said after Saturday’s game that teams, including his own, have to leave UK shooters open because they can’t afford to let Davis and Jones be left alone in the post.

“I’m shooting the ball very well,” Lamb said. “I’m getting a lot of open looks. Hopefully I can keep that up.”

So where does UK turn to next? Maybe a game that’s a little closer.

“What we need to do is have a team come out and go nutty on us,” Calipari said, “and have to respond to that and then hold on to win a tight game.”

You see, Donovan has played three of the perceived elite teams — Ohio State, Syracuse and UK — in college basketball this year, all on the road, all losses.

He wouldn’t give a favorite out of that trio, but he also didn’t hold back from gushing over UK’s abilities.

“In terms of star power, in terms of talent, one through six or seven, Kentucky has the most of anybody,” Donovan said. “They have clearly six guys who will be first-round draft picks.”

Even more than the collection of individual talent — although there’s plenty of that — Donovan liked UK’s mentality. He called it a team’s “disposition,” something innate in a championship-caliber team.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” Donovan said. “A lot of their guys — Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, Miller — just the way those guys carry themselves, I’m impressed with that.”

He saw pretty much all of them, at one point or another, take a chunk out of Florida’s hopes of victory.

Marquis Teague had an active day, scoring 12 points and dishing 10 assists. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist recorded a double-double, too, with 13 points and 13 rebounds.

“He steps up for every game,” Teague said of Kidd-Gilchrist, “but he is a different person when we play better teams.”

Anthony Davis, playing in front of 24,000 posters of his own face, scored 16 points.

Doron Lamb had a second red-hot shooting night, finishing with 18 points.

All players accounted for, UK played like it was in a different league for the fourth straight game.

“They murdered us,” Florida guard Bradley Beal said, according to a UK release.

UK’s been doing a lot of that lately. Opposing coaches keep going through their checklist of ideas for how to slow down UK, how to negate the variety of strengths it possesses.

None have worked so far.

Florida’s methods certainly didn’t, either. Entering the game, the Gators were supposed to have a good chance of upsetting the Cats with a barrage of 3-pointers.

That didn’t happen. UK set a goal of limiting Florida to eight 3-pointers. Do that, and they might score in the 60s, UK head coach John Calipari said, a beatable number. The Cats did better, as the Gators made a season-low six 3-pointers and shot a season-low 22.2 percent.

UK not only held them in check, but one-upped them, making 9 of 15.

Teague held back from saying UK was unbeatable when it was hitting shots. He didn’t want to go that far with it, only saying it made it “really tough.”

Lamb wasn’t as shy.

“Nah, no way,” he said of opponents’ chances if the Cats are knocking down shots. “It’s impossible.”

That’s about what people are saying when it comes to the chances of taking down UK.

Not only in the league.

In the nation, too.

1. John Calipari says defense is the most crucial characteristic of championship teams. UK has it, and it was on full display against Florida, the SEC’s best offensive team. Here’s how the Gators performed compared to their season averages:

• Scored 58 points (averaged 80.1 per game).
• Shot 34.9 percent (averaged 47.2 percent).
• Made six 3-pointers (averaged a nation-leading 10.5 per game), and that was only after some makes late in the second half. The Gators started 2-for-15 from behind the arc.
• Shot 22.2 percent on 3-pointers (averaged 40.2 percent). Its previous low was 25 percent, and it had only made less than 30 percent in a game twice.

Yes, Florida missed some open looks. But UK played its customarily tremendous defense, especially in the stretch from the middle of the first half to the middle of the second half when it took an even ballgame and stretched out a 20-point lead.

2. Which team was supposed to be the one pouring in threes? All the talk leading up to the game centered on how Florida could pull off the upset under a barrage of treys, but it was the Wildcats who hit their open looks. UK shot 60 percent on 3-pointers, and Doron Lamb had his second hot-shooting game in a row, making 4 of 5.

3. This game again showed how balanced UK is. In the first half, Anthony Davis and Terrence Jones had a combined eight points and five rebounds — and UK led a top-10 Florida team by 12 at halftime. The Cats looked shaken in the opening minutes, almost as if it had forgotten what a good SEC team that had comparable skill looked like. But, quickly enough, UK showed that the upper tier of the SEC provided as much of a challenge as the bottom rung of the league has over the first 10 games.

Not much at all.

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• NBA veterans Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups gave John Wall some advice as he tries to lead a struggling team.

• Rajon Rondo’s return from a wrist injury has sparked the Celtics to back-to-back wins.

• Patrick Patterson had 12 points and 7 rebounds in only 23 minutes in Houston’s win over Phoenix on Friday night.

• The Bleacher Report argues that Jodie Meeks should start over former National Player of the Year, Evan Turner.

• The night after posting career highs with 26 points and 7 assists, Pistons guard Brandon Knight broke his nose Saturday against New Orleans. He has been fitted for a mask and won’t miss any game time.

• Demarcus Cousins has been on a tear of late, highlighted by a 28 point, 19 rebound performance Monday night against New Orleans.

“Now, you just know that they’re going to take 30,” Calipari said.

Maybe not 30. Florida averages 26 threes per game and has eclipsed 30 four times, none since Dec. 17. But they’re going to be in that range. They’ve attempted at least 21 threes in every game and made less than 25 percent of them only twice.

Let’s take a look at a play they ran against Vanderbilt, a game in which they made 11 of 24 on the way to a 73-65 win.

Florida’s Ervin Walker handles the ball on the perimeter. To begin the play, the Gators have four players outside the arc. That’s not atypical for the guard-oriented team.

Walker receives two screens on the perimeter, which makes switching through the screens difficult.

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Walker loops around his teammates, and you can already see Vanderbilt’s three defenders getting out of position. The Commodore in the middle is starting to switch all the way over on Walker, but so is the closest defender.

“Their 3-point shooting comes as a result of the things they do before that,” Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said. “They get you into a scrambling rotation.”

With two Vandy defenders trailing Walker, Florida’s Erik Murphy (top left player) has popped open. He’s a 6-foot-11 forward, but he’s not afraid to step outside. He’s attempted 24 threes on the year and has made 75 percent of them.

“With Murphy now, they spread the floor out,” Calipari said. “A year ago, you could predict the 4 or 5 would be close to the rim and you could guard the post. With Murphy able to shoot the 3 that way, it makes it even harder to guard.”

This is one of those times. Walker comes to an abrupt stop, pivots and fires a pass to Murphy, who is waiting behind the arc. He’s got plenty of space.

“I don’t think you can be totally one-dimensional,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “But when we’re open, I want guys shooting it.”

Nobody’s afraid to shoot it on Florida’s team, which has attempted 599 threes on the year in 23 games.

aMurphy rises and buries the three, one of 11 Florida made in beating Vanderbilt.

Calipari said it’s impossible to completely stop the three — Florida will take its shots no matter what — but the key is to heavily contest 3-point attempts.

“Look, you cannot stop a team from shooting threes,” Calipari said. “They’re going to get them. You just want to make sure they’re guarded.”

UK has been able to do just that this year, holding opponents to 31.6 percent 3-point shooting. Only four teams have made more than 40 percent of their 3-pointers in a game.

Florida could do that. If it does, Calipari said, UK just has to move on to the next game.

And shore up its 3-point defense.

“”(If) we come out and we don’t do a good job of guarding the three and they beat us,” Calipari said, “we’re like, ‘OK. Well, there’s an area that we could get beat by in the tournament.’”

And then maybe it wouldn’t happen when that time came around.

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Photo by Quianna Lige | Staff

Florida guard Bradley Beal said over the weekend that he and his team wouldn’t be intimidated coming into Rupp Arena, wouldn’t be daunted by facing No. 1 UK.

“We have the swag where we’re going to compete hard and try to get the win,” Beal said, according to The Gainesville Sun. “We’re not going in there with any doubts just because they are Kentucky.”

But UK’s got swag to match.

“Confidence in your own style of play,” Terrence Jones said when defining it for a group of reporters who may or may not have actually known what the word means. “I think we have a lot of it, too.”

UK will need plenty as it embarks on the portion of the SEC schedule that actually poses a challenge.
The opening SEC slate featured nine games against seven opponents. Those teams are a combined 19-38 in conference play.

The upcoming slate features seven games against five opponents. Those teams are a combined 22-18. Take away Georgia, and that record moves to 21-11.

So yeah, it’s about to get tougher.

It’s also a chance for UK to prove its recent dominance has been more a product of its own play and not its opponents’ vast inferiority. The Cats are No. 1 for a reason, to be sure. It can solidify that thinking over this next stretch.

To do so, UK will have to find a balance in its mentality. Calipari said he would talk to his team about staying humble through its achievements.

“There’s an easy transition from a swagger to arrogance,” Calipari said, “and that’s where you get beat.”

This statement led to the questions about swag. Of all the intangibles that could be talked about with this game — leadership, heart, even Calipari’s favorite will to win — it’s a word that also doubles as a description for clothes.
I sometimes wonder what players like Jones really think as they have to stand against a wall and talk about the merits of such things.

Regardless, Calipari wants his team to have swagger, but not too much. It’s the old confident-not-cocky mantra of finding that fine line between two inexact characteristics.

To do so, UK needs to remember what got it to where it is now — a 23-1 record , a No. 1 ranking — and what started the designations as best team in the country.

Which also becomes one of the things we talk about when a team has so much going for it. After beating its last three opponents by a combined 83 points, have the Cats peaked too early? It is, after all, early February.

Calipari said he believes in the theory that a team can peak too soon.

“I’ve seen teams come out of the gate and I’m like, ‘There’s no way they can sustain this,’” Calipari said. “There’s too much road between now and the end of the season.”

UK still has plenty of road left. Seven regular-season games, then (for the situation that matters most) three SEC Tournament and six NCAA Tournament games.

But Calipari doesn’t think this team has maxed out yet. He noted defensive breakdowns against South Carolina as opportunities for improvement. And with a team full of young players, their individual talent will continue to increase over the next two months, which pushes up the ceiling for the whole team.

Another easy way to guard against UK getting complacent? That tougher upcoming schedule. The Cats can’t relax if it wants to finish out the season at optimal strength, starting with conference second-place Florida.

Note, though, that optimal strength is not defined only by wins and losses. If UK wins out and finishes the regular season on a 22-game winning streak, fine. If UK drops one or two, but keeps getting better, regains that tinge of vulnerability that drives them even further, fine.

“If they really, truly want to do something unique and special, every one of these experiences is building toward March,” Calipari said. “Everything. Our whole season is about that.”

“Do you care about that?” Calipari asked, turning to Davis.

Davis shook his head no. Calipari cut in.

“Yes he does.”

That’s probably more accurate. Davis said his dad usually kids him whenever he falls just short, as he did against South Carolina with 22 points, eight rebounds and eight blocks.

“Unfortunately I didn’t get it,” Davis said, “but there’s always another game.”

It looked, for a while, like this would be the game. Davis was on pace at halftime, with 18 points, six rebounds and five blocks.

He kept up the pace, and late in the second half, Davis was sitting two rebounds and two blocks away from achievement. He was also on the bench. Calipari and his staff went back and forth on whether Davis should go back in, be given a few minutes to see if he could get closer.

The staff ultimately won out. Davis checked back in, a move Calipari later called “unfortunate.” He didn’t get any more blocks or rebounds, but did flip over a South Carolina player going for one.

Immediately, Calipari turned around to his staff and mouthed, “that’s why we don’t do that.”

Davis may not have reached the triple-double, but the night was still full of accomplishments. He broke Shaquille O’Neal’s SEC freshman blocks record of 115, a record that took Shaq 32 games to get.

His 22-point, eight-rebound, eight-block performance led South Carolina head coach Darrin Horn to call him “arguably the best player in the nation.”

The other coach involved in that game wasn’t arguing with him.

“I would say he’s playing that way,” Calipari said.

Davis might be. He’s at the top of the player of the year ballot for ESPN’s Jason King. He was No. 3 last week in the CBS player of the week poll.

Keep turning in games like the one Saturday, and he might climb even higher.

All the way to the top, even.

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I didn’t want to write about how amazingly awesome UK was, how they’re the clear No. 1 team in America. I wanted to wait to see how UK handles its upcoming seven-game stretch that includes all the top teams in the SEC.

But after that game against South Carolina, how could I write anything different?

“Yes,” head coach John Calipari responded, point blank and without hesitation, when asked if this was UK’s best game.

It absolutely was. UK more than doubled up on South Carolina by halftime, leading 52-25. With nine minutes left in an SEC road game, UK had one starter on the floor.

The Cats finished with a 34-point win, which followed a 24-point win on the road (LSU) and a 25-point win at home (Tennessee).

“We played well at LSU, but not like this,” Calipari said. “This was the best we’ve played.”

I know, it’s not the SEC elite UK is thrashing. But it’s still the SEC, and those are rather large numbers.

And it was the rather large numbers posted by Anthony Davis (22 points on 9-for-10 shooting, eight rebounds, eight blocks) and Terrence Jones (16 points on 5-for-10 shooting, six rebounds, one block) propelled the victory.

With a frontcourt of that caliber playing at a level of that magnitude, UK takes on another dimension. South Carolina was undersized, but it was more than the stats that left an impression. It was the way the pair played, viciously attacking the basket (on offense) and opponent’s shots (on defense).

As separate entities, Davis and Jones make for one of the most imposing post combinations. One or the other will inevitably go off, and not many teams have an answer for either.

But when they play well collectively, it’s an even more dire situation for opponents. If few teams have an answer for either, almost zero teams have an answer for both.

The pair had each scored 15 or more points in the same game only twice before, against St. John’s and Arkansas-Little Rock.

Against South Carolina, they combined for 38 points, 14 rebounds and nine blocks.

When both imposed their will on this game, it gave UK a look of being close to unbeatable.

“It’s simple,” South Carolina head coach Darrin Horn said. “They looked like the No. 1 team in the country.”

And if they looked like they were the No. 1 team in the country, that means they could have beaten anyone ranked No. 2 or below. Being dominated was not exclusive to South Carolina.

“It didn’t matter who we played,” Calipari said. “Someone was getting beat by 30 today. Just because of how good we played.”

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1. Dominance — UK has crushed its last two opponents, LSU and Tennessee, by a combined 50 points, giving rise to numerous articles about how the Cats are the clear-cut No. 1 team. I wouldn’t disagree with that — but I would say that it’s advisable to wait another three weeks. UK still hasn’t played Vanderbilt, at home or away; Florida, at home or away; or Mississippi State on the road. Its SEC schedule is about to ramp up, and we’ll get a better sense of how truly elite UK is at the end of that stretch.

For now, UK will play the next opponent given to it on the schedule, and that somebody is South Carolina. The Gamecocks are 1-6 in SEC play but seemingly on the upswing. They beat Alabama at home, lost to Ole Miss by four on the road and lost to Florida by eight on the road. Still, UK has mismatches across the board — including on the boards.

South Carolina’s leading rebounder averages 5.3 per game, a number that three Cats top. The Gamecocks are the SEC’s worst defensive rebounding team and UK is the SEC’s best offensive rebounding team. The Cats should be able to exploit their size advantage and dominate the inside.

Right now, UK is moving at the right pace.

“Probably about where they should be. I’m not going to tell you we’re behind, but I’m certainly not going to tell you we’re ahead,” coach John Calipari said in assessing how his team is progressing. “It’s February, and we’re playing like a February team.”

If UK can turn in another imposing performance on the road, they will be rolling as they head into a significant three weeks.

And look more like a March team on the way.

2. Shooting — USC allows opponents to make 44.5 percent of its field goal attempts, the worst rate in the SEC. UK makes 48.5 percent of its shots, the best rate in the SEC. The Gamecocks are especially porous when defending the 3-point line, as opponents make 39.1 percent of their shots from behind the arc. For UK’s top perimeter threats, Doron Lamb and Darius Miller, this could be a game to bounce back from a tough shooting night against Tennessee, when they combined to shoot 1-7 on threes.

3. Teague’s improvement — It doesn’t seem that long ago when nearly everyone had some degree of criticism for Marquis Teague, but Teague’s recent production has been more than solid, as shown by comparing his first eight SEC games to John Wall’s and Brandon Knight’s:

Teague: Averaging 4.13 assists and 2.38 turnovers in his first eight SEC games.

Wall: Averaging 5.88 assists and 3.88 turnovers in his first eight SEC games.

Knight: Averaging 3.5 assists and 3.25 turnovers in his first eight SEC games.

Granted, Teague doesn’t have to score nearly as often as the other two — his 8.75 points per game average in the same span pale compared to Wall’s 15 and Knight’s 16.1 — but that just allows him to focus on running an offense.

Teague will need to continue his solid play as UK makes its way into the SEC homestretch. Another good game on the road against South Carolina will be a good step.

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No. 1 UK is clicking.

That’s a scary sentence. The Cats are the nearly unanimous top-ranked team in the nation, have beaten everybody on their schedule except one team, and stand one shot from perfection (which actually is a good thing, as the “will they go undefeated?” chatter” would be heating up right around now).

And they’re just now starting to round into dominant form.

In the past two games, UK has converged on fully realizing its vast potential. The Cats eviscerated LSU on Saturday, then went platinum against Tennessee on Tuesday, 69-44.

Would this be what head coach John Calipari envisioned a few weeks ago when he said, once everything started coming together and the Cats started resolving their few glaring weaknesses, that UK could be “scary” good?

“I would,” he said.

But it wasn’t Anthony Davis, he of the 18 points, eight rebounds and seven turnovers, that Calipari said has been the primary reason for making his team go.

It wasn’t Terrence Jones, he of the 11 points and six rebounds, whose physical play has taken UK up a notch.

It wasn’t Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, he of a quiet 16 points and eight rebounds, either.

Those three players all help immensely, sure. But they don’t get going without the player Calipari said was the crucial component to making the offense click.

It was Marquis Teague, he of nine points, four assists and two turnovers.

“The guy that has the ball, if he’s playing well, you’ve got a chance,” Calipari said. “If he’s not playing well, you have no chance.”

UK had more than a chance against Tennessee. It was the most guaranteed thing I had seen since watching 4 a.m. infomercial promises (and waiting to hear more) on Saturday night. The Cats made their first shot of the game, then another, and then nine more to start the game. They didn’t miss until 11 minutes had elapsed.

While the offense is slowly getting to the point where it can consistently manufacture points, the defense has been a constant shut-it-down entity.

UK held the Volunteers to 28.1 percent shooting, the Volunteers’ worst shooting night of the season. Other than Renaldo Woolridge’s five straight 3-pointers in the first half (he had made one of seven attempts in SEC play before this game), Tennessee was getting rebuffed from every spot on the floor. The Volunteers finished with 44 points, their lowest scoring output of the year.

But for opponents playing UK, it was another night facing the same shredding defense. UK has held three straight opponents to 50 points or less for the first time since 1950-51.

That’s a damn long time.

Between that opening stretch and the full-game defense, UK showed it’s not just the current No. 1 team in the nation. It also has, far and away, the highest ceiling. And the closer March comes, the closer UK comes to getting all the way to the top.

“Coach Cal always says he doesn’t care about winning or losing, he just wants to get better as a team,” Davis said. “If we do that, we’ll be fine.”

Right now, the Cats are doing both. And they’re doing more than jut fine.

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1. Jarnell Stokes — Tennessee’s freshman forward played his first college game against UK in their first matchup. He had nine points and four rebounds in 17 minutes (all while, according to Jimmy Dykes’ now infamous repetition, hardly knowing what the game of college basketball apparently was) against Kentucky earlier this season in his first NCAA game.

While Terrence Jones downplayed his impact on that game — “I don’t think he really made that big of a difference,” Jones said — Stokes has the abilities to prove Jones wrong this time around. He’s not overly tall, but he’s strong in the paint. He had 16 points and 12 rebounds against Connecticut three games ago.

However, UK has been able to handle physical play in recent games, a style Jones said started with the Volunteers.

“I think they were one of the first that played us that way,” Jones said. “But since then every game has been like that. We’ve adjusted to it.”

If Jones and Anthony Davis are up to the toughness challenge, the Cats should hold steady in the post and take away Tennessee’s best trait.

Photo by Scott Hannigan | Staff

2. Marquis Teague’s defense — In the first matchup, Teague held Tennessee point guard Trae Golden — who was averaging over 20 points per game for the four contests leading into UK — to two points.

At the time, Calipari called it the best defensive performance Teague had played. It might have started a slide for Golden, who’s had point totals of two (UConn) and four (at Vanderbilt) since then.

Teague will need to play tenacious defense again. Golden has the capability to jump start the Volunteers’ offense. Shut him down, the Tennessee will struggle even more to keep up on the scoreboard.

3. Who steps up? — Last game, it was Terrence Jones, who exploded for a season-high 27 points. Often, however, one man’s huge game comes at the expense of others. Against LSU, that was Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who scored one point (he still did enough to where Calipari called him the “best” player on the floor that day).

Will it be a well-rounded performance from everybody? Will one player take command? The dynamics of UK’s offense is fascinating, because it could be one just as likely as it could be the other.

Either way, points are almost guaranteed to come because of UK’s offensive versatility. We just don’t where where it will originate.

PREDICTION: In the platinum jerseys, UK takes care of business, winning 75-64. Playing at home again will be a huge help (read this piece by Tennessee beat writer Mike Strange on the challenges on winning at Rupp).

When asked about the second installment of UK-Tennessee, Calipari first pointed to the location of the game.

“I’m glad it’s at home, I can tell you,” Calipari said, before hedging his words with, “I don’t know if that will matter.”

I would bet it does.

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• John Calipari barked like a dog. This is a true story.
• The most interesting subplot to this game is LSU guard Anthony Hickey, who was last year’s Kentucky Mr. Basketball but wasn’t recruited by UK. Marquis Teague expects him to come out and play with a “chip on his shoulder,” because “who wouldn’t want to go play against the team that didn’t recruit him and play well?” Calipari agreed that Hickey might come out with a little motivation. “And he should be. He’s going to go out and prove himself.” However, Hickey brushed off the snub and said he won’t be playing with any extra intensity.
• Calipari said Hickey — who’s averaging 10 points per game with a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio — was good enough to play at UK. It’s just that he went with Marquis Teague, instead. Calipari said it wouldn’t have been fair to bring both to UK.
• Hickey and Teague have played each other in the Kentucky-Indiana high school all-star games. In two matchups, Teague had 30 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. Hickey had 25 points, 14 assists and eight steals.
• Teague discussed in detail the improvements he’s made throughout the season. He said early in the year, he was “over thinking” things on the court. “I’ve always been a natural player, going off reactions and natural ability,” Teague said. “I was worrying about things I shouldn’t have been.”
• His early struggles with turnovers created some doubts as he wondered if he would ever truly grasp how to play the point guard position the way Calipari wanted him to. “It plays with your head a lot more than people think it would,” Teague said. “You have to be tough-minded and keep working to get yourself out of it.”
• Now, Teague said he’s back to playing instinctively. He’s had three or fewer turnovers in six of the past seven games, and Calipari’s prodding to get better — which used to be after every game — has decreased. “I’m a lot more comfortable,” Teague said. “I’m not always looking over my shoulder.”
• He is looking around him on the floor, however, and Teague’s directing the offense has helped six players average 10 or more points per game. It’s incredible balance that I touched on in my column last night, and Teague is a central part of it. “On a team like this, you don’t have to score as many points. I’ve just tried to get everyone else involved, create and control the tempo.”
• However, that balance makes it harder to make the extra pass, Calipari said. When you’re getting 8-12 shots per game, it’s harder to pass up shots because they are relatively scarce.
• Darius Miller said his 19-point game against Georgia wasn’t necessarily a turn-the-corner moment. “That’s just one game,” Miller said. “We feel we have a lot of weapons, so it could be somebody else’s game tomorrow. I’m just trying to get better, personally, every game.”
• Because LSU plays a similar style to Georgia, UK didn’t have to prepare as much as normal. “The good news for preparation is they play a lot like Georgia,” Calipari said. “A lot of the stuff when we go over it, we will have seen it. That’s why yesterday I didn’t use any time in our practice (for walkthroughs).”
• Calipari said he added some new wrinkles to UK’s offensive sets to “spice things up” for the players. “It kind of got them off-kilter,” Calipari said. “It made them think. You get used to coming into this practice and just going through the (motions). Now all of a sudden, what? Something new? I got to what?’”

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LSU coach Trent Johnson had this to say when assessing Saturday’s opponent: “I don’t know if it’s Kentucky or the Miami Heat we have to play.”

According to the schedule, it’s Kentucky, although Johnson’s remark pretty much sums up how opponents view UK. They have a talent, athleticism and size advantage over everyone else.

If UK can continue its gradual improvement and improve to 5-0 on the road, UK will retain its No. 1 ranking. And no pre-game chalk toss needed.

2. Offensive output

Two of UK’s five least efficient games came on the road in the SEC, against Auburn and Georgia (the others: Louisville, Kansas, Old Dominion). And LSU won’t be much easier than the other SEC opponents. The Tigers rank third in the SEC in scoring defense (61.5 points per game) and fourth in field goal percentage defense (40 percent).

UK stalled against Georgia in the second half, scoring 19 points. It doesn’t want that happen again — although even if it does, UK might be fine anyway. LSU is another good-defense, bad-offense team, the type that UK has seemingly encountered in every conference game to this point.

The Tigers shoot just 40.6 percent on offense and don’t get to the free throw line often. They take care of the basketball, ranking second in the SEC in turnover margin (plus-2.95), so it won’t be easy for UK to push the pace off turnovers.

Given UK’s high-quality defense, this could be another relatively low-scoring game.

3. Post play

If there’s one player who could give UK trouble, it will be Justin Hamilton. The 6-foot-11 center leads the team in scoring (13.9 points per game) and rebounds (7.4 per game).

UK just came off beating Georgia, a severely undersized team with no true interior presence. LSU has one, and the onus will fall on Anthony Davis to match his physicality. It’s another good test for Davis as he continues to improve his play in the paint.

Which is why now is the time to write about UK’s offensive balance. The numbers have aligned.

Six players are averaging 10 points or more per game. Just a game ago, Darius Miller was averaging 9.9. Marquis Teague is currently right at 10.0 and could slip under in the next game. But right now, in this stretch between one game and the next, all six are at or above the magically rounded 10-point mark.

It’s a historic rate of scoring distribution. No other team in the NCAA has six players averaging in double digits, and UK itself has never finished a season with that many players scoring 10 or more points per game.

Any form of measurement showcases UK’s offensive balance. The top six have taken between 160 shots (Miller) and 196 shots (Doron Lamb). Their shot percentage — the percentage of the team’s shot a player takes when he’s on the floor — all reside between 18 percent (Davis) and 21.2 percent (Lamb).

“That means that we have an unselfish team that’ll pass to each other,” UK head coach John Calipari said.

Kentucky Wildcats bench goes wild after a play during the second half of the University of Kentucky Men's basketball game against Radford at Rupp Arena, Nov. 23, 2011. UK led the game at half 88-40. Photo by Mike Weaver | Staff

Calipari sees the challenge of getting multiple great players to play together, rather than getting multiple good players and making them great, as the more difficult task.

“To get a mediocre group to play together and become a good team, there’s a bunch of coaches (who could do that),” Calipari said last week. “And I’m not saying this in regards to me but to get the all-stars, like Phil Jackson would do, to play triangle offense, defend together, communicate together and have Breakfast Club together, that’s the challenge of what we do.”

It’s a process, he said, that starts when he’s recruiting the future All-Americans. In the living room, when the realities of having to earn your time and your shots still seem far away, honesty is paramount.
Calipari said he asks recruits if they want to win a national title. Then he asks whether they can do it alone. The answer if vital; can players accustomed to being The Man subjugate their want for off-the-charts stats?

On this year’s team, it appears that answer has been ‘yes.’
“I love sharing the basketball with these guys,” Kidd-Gilchrist said. “We’re like brothers.”

Having this many players performing at that high level creates depth, but not in the traditional sense of the word. Usually, teams with “depth” go eight or nine competent players deep.

This team goes with its six heavy contributors and Kyle Wiltjer rounding out whatever’s left.

The team’s structure isn’t that different, on the surface, from last year’s. They had six heavy contributors and then Eloy Vargas rounding out whatever was left. That team had questions about its depth, all the way from the start of the season to the end of it.

Not this team, though. Lack of depth hasn’t been an issue at all, despite only going seven-ish players deep. That’s largely because the top six are collectively at a different, and equivalent, level.
“This year’s team isn’t that deep, but they’re deep enough,” Calipari said.

Can the pace be sustained? It will be tough. Miller or Teague could easily be averaging 9.9 after playing LSU.

But that’s the thing about round numbers. If either is averaging 9.9 points after Saturday, these concepts about the team sharing the ball don’t dissipate.

It just means we won’t be able to spout the “six UK players are scoring in double figures” stat anymore.

Until they’re back above the magical round-number line.

Darius Miller, who was not starting after doing so the previous four straight games, pulled UK (20-1, 6-0 SEC) to a 57-44 win at Georgia.

It was Miller’s night as soon as he took over late in the first half. With UK holding a three-point lead, Miller hit a 3-pointer. Then he hit a mid-range jumper. Then another. It was seven unanswered points and helped propel UK to a comfortable halftime lead.

In the second half, after UK went through an offensive drought that saw it go more than five minutes without a point, it was Miller who decided to take the most fundamental action in all of basketball and finally make a basket.

Apparently, this was the game John Calipari decided Doron Lamb — who had been benched in the middle of a scoring slump — had “fought” enough to regain his spot in the starting lineup. Apparently, this was the game Miller decided to ball.

He tied his season high with 19 points on 7-8 shooting, scoring from both the perimeter (4-4 on 3-pointers) and inside, with those two jumpers and dunk rounding out his box score.

Granted, this wasn’t Miller dominating a good NCAA Tournament team, because the Bulldogs certainly don’t look like one. Before the game, Georgia coach Mark Fox said Miller was “taller than my power forward, and he plays the two (guard).”

He forgot Miller was also better than his power forward — and everyone else on his team (at least for this game).

Maybe this is the start of a good stretch for Miller. Last week, he scored 11 against Arkansas and Alabama after scoring less than 10 the three games before that.

He heated up toward the end of SEC play last season, culminating in an SEC Tournament MVP award. If it is the start of something for Miller, it could take UK to that next level Calipari is looking to reach and make it even harder to resist beer-related puns when talking about Miller.

That doesn’t mean he has to score 19 points every game. That won’t happen. It won’t happen for him, or Anthony Davis, or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. UK has too many players to have one player dominate, game in and game out.

But UK has a few players take over a game, and Miller can be one of those. It doesn’t have to be the same guy, or even the same two or three guys, who show up game to game. It just has to be someone (or multiple someones) each game.

Against Georgia, with four of UK’s top six scorers (Anthony Davis, Terrence Jones, Doron Lamb, Marquis Teague) scoring just 18 points combined, Miller had his chance to take control.

The more Miller does it, the more consistent and dangerous UK can be.

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1. Georgia should struggle to put points on the scoreboard. The Bulldogs are last in the SEC in points per game (61.9) and shooting percentage (39.9 percent). UK is second in the SEC in scoring defense (59.7 points per game) and first in shooting percentage defense (36.3 percent).

UK, with its lockdown interior defense, should especially be able to control an extremely thin Georgia frontcourt. So how could Georgia possibly pull off an upset? By getting uncontrollably hot, which could happen in two ways.

Either the Bulldogs will knock down 3-pointers (they make 31.9 percent, ninth in the league).

Or one/both of the combination of Gerald Robinson and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will play out of their minds. Each takes slightly over 29 percent of their team’s shots. While they aren’t the most efficient players — both shoot in the low 40 percent range — if they play better than usual and keep dominating the ball on offense, Georgia could put up enough points to hang with UK.

“One of the best young players in the country,” John Calipari said of Caldwell-Pope. “He’s a game changer for t

hat program.”

2. The biggest mismatch in a game full of them is on the glass. The Cats lead the SEC in rebounding margin (plus-8.8 rpg) and the Bulldogs rank last (minus-2.4 rpg). UK needs to take full advantage of the frontcourt mismatch (Georgia head coach Mark Fox said Darius Miller is “bigger than my power forward,” and he’s not exaggerating all that much), especially when Georgia is on offense. The Bulldogs rank last in the SEC (sense a trend?) in offensive rebounding percentage (30.7 percent). The Cats can’t allow an excessive and unusual amount of second-chance points.

Photo by Scott Hannigan | Staff

3. I’m interested in seeing how Anthony Davis plays, especially considering the mismatch he should have. Davis had 11 points and nine r

ebounds against Alabama, and afterward, he said that teams playing him physical was a new “challenge. I like challenges.”

Calipari said the key for Davis is to start playing before the ball gets to him — that is, don’t wait until he is receiving the entry pass to fight for position.

So, should we expect to see Davis bounce back from his (still solid) game against Alabama? Doron Lamb thinks so.

“I think at Georgia he’s going to have a big game,” Lamb said Saturday. “I think he’s upset today. He’ll get in the gym and get ready for that game on Tuesday.”

Tuesday’s here. Let’s see what Davis, and UK, has in store.

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Photo by Scott Hannigan | Staff

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist watched (former) No. 1 Syracuse lose on Saturday night as an impartial observer, even as he knew it meant UK would be the new No. 1 team.

Maybe he didn’t get caught up in it because UK’s been there before this season. Maybe it’s because opponents bring their best every game regardless of UK’s ranking. Maybe it’s because he didn’t want to pull a Chane Behanan and say something stupid.

Whatever the reason, Kidd-Gilchrist — and the rest of the team — wasn’t too concerned with the new number next to the team’s name.
“It’s just a number at the end of the day,” he said.

It is. It’s a totally arbitrary number assigned by People Who Know Things at a time of the year when it matters absolutely zero amounts of anything.

“I was trying to get a hold of (Syracuse coach) Jim Boeheim,” head coach John Calipari said. “I was so mad at him. It’s just an added thing. … We’ll address it for a second or two, but we’ve just got to play.”

Still, UK deserves the ranking. It received 92 of 96 possible first-place votes from coaches and media, a number built on both resume and reputation.

“We’re young,” Kidd-Gilchrist said, “but we’re good, too.”

The No. 1 ranking at the end of the season is, of course, the only one that matters. UK could lose this week, and — what would it matter?

Nothing, really. In fact, Calipari would be fine with it, as he’s trying to find the optimal balance between developing a “will to win” and learning from your losses, two seemingly irreconcilable messages.

“We probably need a loss so that we’ll come together and say, ‘We’re not losing like this,’” Calipari said. “We’re getting manhandled and winning close games, so they think it’s OK.”

Then again, a loss would mean losing the No. 1 ranking again.

The Cats have been ranked No. 1 two previous times in Calipari’s three years, but have held onto the top spot for a combined three weeks.

Earlier this season, Indiana took the ranking away at its home court.

UK would have to survive two more road games this week — at Georgia Tuesday and at LSU Saturday — to keep the top ranking.

“The crowd’s going to be into it with the new rankings,” forward Terrence Jones said.

Although, he said, the crowd’s always into it when UK visits.

Said Kidd-Gilchrist, “I love the pressure.”

So if UK loses the No. 1 next to its name, no big deal.

But it wouldn’t fit into Kidd-Gilchrist’s plan to keep it.

“All we got to do is win games,” he said, “and we’ll be No. 1 forever.”

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• UK climbed back to No. 1 in both major polls following Syracuse’s loss on Saturday. UK received all 31 votes in the coaches poll and 61 of 65 first-place votes in the AP poll. Missouri and Syracuse split the remaining four votes.
• UK held the No. 1 ranking for two weeks earlier in the season. The state of Kentucky is owning college basketball right now, with the top-ranked team (UK) and the only undefeated team left (No. 9 Murray State).
• UK was shut out of the SEC weekly awards. Ole Miss’ Terrence Henry and Tennessee’s Jarnell Stokes were the recipients this week.
• LSU coach Trent Johnson: “I don’t know if it’s Kentucky or the Miami Heat we have to play Saturday.” I just checked the schedule. It’s Kentucky.
• On the SEC teleconference, John Calipari again heaped praise on the league. He called it “the best it’s been” in his three years at UK and deemed it “one of the best in the nation.” He said the teams at the top are as strong as any conference, throwing in the Big 12 as a league that’s possibly stronger. He again said five teams — Alabama, Florida, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and “hopefully us” — will make the Sweet 16 and predicted “eight or nine teams” could make the NCAA Tournament.
• Calipari wants to see more internal praise of the conference. “We need to brag on ourselves more,” he said. I think he’s trying to make up for it all on his own. He’s been talking about having five Sweet 16 teams for the past two weeks and went to ESPN’s Andy Katz with it Monday morning. I couldn’t set high enough odds that we’ll hear about it at the press conference this afternoon. We’ll see how right he was in March.
• UK plays at Georgia on Tuesday. The Bulldogs are led by a freshman guard — the type of player Calipari is familiar with — in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who leads the team in points (14.7), minutes (31.6) and steals (1.8) and is third in rebounding (5.1). “He’s one of the best young players in the country,” Calipari said. “He’s a game changer for their program.”
• On the other side, Fox was returning the compliments for UK. He raved about their length and athleticism. “They’re loaded with weapons,” Fox said. “[Darius] Miller is probably bigger than my power forward, and he’s starting at the two. They’re big, long, athletic and cover ground well.”
• Fox also noted UK’s balance, which has six players scoring 9.9 points or more ( Darius Miller really needs to raise his per-game average by 0.1 points so it’s a nice round number). “Some guys get the attention, but they have lots of players making plays,” Fox said. “To put up numbers on that team is impressive because they have so many guys who have to share the ball.”

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This game tested UK’s ability to play a full 40 minutes, something players have recently talked about needing to do better. UK had a slim advantage for the vast majority of the game — its largest lead was 8 points in the middle of the first half — and any time the Cats stretched its lead and looked like it was about to go on a game-busting run, Alabama hit a big shot to answer.

So the Cats couldn’t let up, couldn’t wilt.

Not with Alabama sinking nearly everything it could throw up, making 65 percent of its shots in the second half.

That extended to the 3-point line, where — predictably, for Calipari, who always expects teams to outdo their season averages against UK — Alabama made 5 of 7 (71.4 percent) after entering the game last in the SEC at 26.9 percent.

“Every time we play a game, team we play against makes shot we know they don’t make,” Doron Lamb said. “That team did that today. We knew that and didn’t pay it no mind.”

UK countered in an unusual way. It wasn’t Anthony Davis (11 points, 9 rebounds) and/or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (13 points, 6 rebounds) who dragged UK to victory.

“Anthony was not the same guy,” Calipari said, “and neither was Michael.”

Instead of monster games from a few, UK got solid games from everyone. Six players scored in double figures, ranging from 10 points to 15 points, the first time that’s happened at UK since Feb. 19, 2005.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Alabama coach Anthony Grant said.

Even more important, UK turned around a poor first-half performance from the free-throw line (it made 4 of 11) to secure the win. UK’s final 15 points all came on free throws, and UK made all eight of its attempts inside the final minute.

“I trust anyone at the line,” Davis said.

The constantly slim lead made for a less comfortable and less assured win, but it also forced UK to play as if its lead was about to slip away.

It never did.

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1. They play great defense. The Crimson Tide are No. 1 in scoring defense (56.4) and No. 2 in field goal percentage defense (37%) in the SEC. “They’re really, really good defensively,” coach John Calipari said. “They’re going to guard us. When you drive you’re going to have a body on you.” Much of that is predicated on their physicality, which will probably be the most UK has encountered this season.

Let’s now move on to the advantages UK will have:

1. They play great defense. The Cats are No. 2 in scoring defense (59.1) and No. 1 in field goal percentage defense (35.8%) in the SEC.
2. They play very good offense, ranking No. 2 in scoring offense (79.8) and No. 1 in field goal percentage (48.8%).
3. They are playing at Rupp Arena, where they haven’t lost in 45 games. “We always say we don’t want to be the team that messes up,” Anthony Davis said. “We go out there and try to approach every game like any other one, but at the same time, play hard knowing we have to keep the streak alive.”
4. They are playing Alabama just 39 hours after the Crimson Tide lost to Vanderbilt at home. “Hopefully that factors in,” Darius Miller said, “and we take advantage of that.” UK, meanwhile, hasn’t played since Tuesday, when it ripped apart Arkansas in a performance that led to the least critical Calipari in along time. Doron Lamb said if UK keeps playing like that, “we can win every game and win the whole thing.”
5. They (most likely) won’t get buried by 3-pointers. Alabama makes 26.9 percent, worst in the SEC.

Now, this doesn’t mean UK will win. Alabama certainly can beat the Cats, especially if its defense really, really frustrates UK’s half court offense — which is entirely possible.

But the Cats’ confidence is high, as evidenced by Lamb’s quote. He specifically referenced the improved play of Terrence Jones and Marquis Teague (quick note: Teague will be the most interesting player to watch. He played fantastic against Arkansas, but that up-tempo style of play perfectly suited him. He needs to replicate that in the half court, and Alabama will be the best test yet) for why UK is starting to make strides.

Anthony Davis is also showing improvement in a more narrow manner. He’s been developing post moves to accentuate his lob-catching skills. Calipari said the key was that Davis allowed the coaching staff to properly pace him.

“I had no post experience until I got here,” Davis said. “Now I’m learning moves, it’s making it a lot easier.”

Davis said the right-handed jump hook is his best one right now, especially after he made a slight adjustment in how much pressure he applies to the ball when he releases it.

“Hopefully we start getting him more touches so he can show that,” Miller said. “He’s been very patient, doing what coach wants him to do.”

There’s one more thing Davis gets to show against Alabama: that he can play defense against a physical post player. He struggled at times against Tennessee — the team he said has been the most physical this year — as the Volunteers backed him down on the block.

Going up against Alabama’s JaMychal Green, who’s averaging 13.7 points and 6.7 rebounds per game, will be a big test. Last year, Josh Harrellson contained Green in the SEC Tournament, and everybody made a big deal out of it. Davis gets his chance Saturday.

Overall, UK shouldn’t be tested against Alabama — but it will be another step in the progression of this team.

“It’s what this team needs,” Calipari said.

Photo by Mike Weaver | Staff

Sometimes, games just aren’t built to be fair. This was one of them.

Arkansas entered the game with (1) the misguided idea of trying to run with UK despite a severe athleticism deficit and (2) a lineup too small to hang with UK on the inside.

UK shot down the first point from the start. If the cliché for these types of basketball games is that it’s a “track meet,” then the Cats were Usain Bolt, minus being Jamaican.

“If they try to run with us, it plays into our hands,” Anthony Davis said. “We play above the rim. It gives us an advantage.”

UK ran all over Arkansas, shooting 57.1 percent. At the helm of the pressure-breaking attack was G Marquis Teague, who had his best game of the season. He scored seven points, but more importantly — way more importantly — Teague had a career-high nine assists against three turnovers. The pace and style of the game were perfectly suited to his abilities.

“Unbelievable floor game,” head coach John Calipari said. “The best he’s played all year. Nothing was forced. Didn’t make any crazy plays.”

Unfortunately for UK, not every team will try to adopt Arkansas’ “run with them” approach. In fact, every team will adopt the exact opposite approach. That might have been the first and last time we saw any team try to run with UK.

Calipari agreed with that statement after the game. After taking a brief pause, looking like he was letting himself savor the alternative possibility — that each and every game could be a free-flowing one — Calipari said he was fine with teams forcing UK into a “grind-it-out” game.

“Obviously I would love to play fast the whole game,” Calipari said, “but you’ve got to be able to play in the half court.”

Granted, this game was probably not going to be close. UK has yet to lose at Rupp Arena with Calipari as head coach, and Arkansas had lost handily in all four of its non-home games (while being 13-0 at home). It would have been quite the upset had the Razorbacks beat, or even challenged, UK.

As it happened, they didn’t.

As for the second point on playing with too small a lineup, UK played above the rim and above the Arkansas players. The Cats finished with a 38-26 rebounding advantage and blocked 13 shots. Most of that was led by Davis and his monster performance — but I already wrote an entire column about him, so let’s focus on Terrence Jones instead.

Jones played his most active game since his mid-December injury. He was bounding around the court, scoring 13 points, grabbing nine rebounds and blocking five shots.

“He’s starting to get back in his groove, being more aggressive,” Davis said. “He’s going back to the old Terrence Jones.”

With Jones and Teague clicking, UK was on another level.

“This thing takes on a different look,” Calipari said.

A different look and another level is where UK wants to be.

The second block of the night was more like all those that came before it, a full-extension swat of Arkansas guard BJ Young’s drive with 4:52 left in the first half.

Record set.

Davis was taken out of the game to a round of applause for breaking UK’s single-season blocks record.

“It was a great night,” Davis said.

Fittingly enough, minutes after being put back in, Davis ended the first half with a buzzer-beating block. He ended up with a 19-game total of 89 blocks.

“My teammates were talking about that already,” Davis said. “They were saying, ‘we’re not even halfway through the season and you broke the blocks record.’ It’s a great accomplishment, especially for a freshman.”

Said Terrence Jones, “It’s going to be a high record once the season’s over.”

Jones had five blocks himself for the night and — as usual — couldn’t eclipse the Block King (who did more than just block shots, scoring a career-high 27 points with 14 rebounds).

The freshman is a safety valve for UK under the goal, erasing mistakes and allowing UK’s top-notch defense to extend itself without worrying about getting beat. Even if Davis doesn’t actually block a shot, he often alters it or forces a tougher one.

“We know we can go out and pressure the ball,” Marquis Teague said. “If we get beat, he’s there to help us and clean it up for us.”

Jones said Davis’ instincts and ability to wait for an opponent to shoot — a skill that’s half natural and half acquired — make him a “special” player.

Opponents are finding out just how special. His reputation now precedes him, and he usually lives up to it. During the game, Arkansas guard Mardracus Wade said he heard Davis tell his teammates, “bring them in here. I’m going to block everything.”

Davis was pretty much spot on.

If there’s one thing basketball players don’t like to do, it’s get stuffed. Davis’ penchant for doing just that is intimidating.

“When they come to the hole and they got to shoot the ball,” Davis said, “it’s definitely on their mind: Where’s Anthony Davis?”

Usually, it seems like he’s everywhere.

Opponents couldn’t hide from him on the court.

The record books couldn’t hide from him either.

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Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings isn’t too happy about that.

Stallings said it’s “not right,” according to The Tennessean.

Compounding UK’s lack of playing two games in the three days is that they play four opponents who will be on the tail end of a Thursday-Saturday combo.

“Go figure that one out for me, would you?” Stallings said. “We all agreed to do it, so if you have one like we have one, I’m not going to complain with the one that we have. To not have any and to be able to play four teams that have to do it to play you … I don’t think it’s right for somebody not to have any and to play four different times when their opponents have to play them on short order. That’s not fair and it’s not equitable, and something needs to be done about that.”

UK has played one Thursday-Saturday combination when it played St. John’s on a Thursday and North Carolina two days later. The closest the Wildcats come to replicating that in SEC play is a Thursday-Sunday combination to close the season.

UK and Vanderbilt meet on Feb. 11.

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Kentucky's Terrence Jones (3) drives by a defender during the second half of the University of Kentucky Mens Basketball game against South Carolina at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky., on 1/7/12. UK won the game 79-64. Photo by Mike Weaver | Staff

Nearly every team about to play UK has shied away from trying to run with the Cats.

Not Arkansas.

The Razorbacks push the pace on offense and defense. Their adjusted tempo of 72.6 possessions per game ranks No. 14 in the nation. They scored 98 points against Mississippi State three games ago and have broken 80 points six other times.

“We’re going to attack. That’s how we’re going to play,” Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson said. “We won’t go away from what we do.”

UK is glad Arkansas isn’t changing its plan. Players who have been forced to get accustomed to grind-it-out games will get the chance to run, run, run.

The player who will be in control of the pace is up for an up-tempo game.

“This is going to be exciting,” freshman point guard Marquis Teague said. “We look forward to these types of games, playing up and down, using our speed and athleticism.”

Teague will have to use more than just his speed and athleticism to navigate the Razorbacks’ high-pressure press. Arkansas hopes to force multiple passes before its opponents cross half court.

“They don’t let you breathe,” said LSU head coach Trent Johnson, whose team was pressured into 16 turnovers in a loss.

That was actually an above-average performance against the Razorbacks, which has forced its opponents into 312 turnovers this year (18.4 per game).

It will fall on Teague to make smart decisions.

“It’s another thing for our point guard to feel and work his way through,” head coach John Calipari said.

Avoid turnovers, and UK gets more possessions to work with. More possessions mean more opportunities to make plays. More opportunities mean more shots.

And more shots means, well —

“More points for somebody,” sophomore forward Terrence Jones said (and may I add that UK hopes that “somebody” is Doron Lamb, who has scored 14 or fewer points – his current season average – in seven straight games).

It also means the floor is opened up for more rebounding opportunities. Calipari wants to see his team win more 50-50 balls. If there’s a game in which that can happen, it’s against Arkansas.

While UK has three players among the SEC’s top 15 rebounders (Anthony Davis, Terrence Jones and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist), Arkansas has none. No Razorback averages more than 5.2 rebounds per game, and the team is dead last in the SEC at defensive rebounding.

“That poses a big challenge for our basketball team,” Anderson said. “That’s an area we’re not as strong at because we don’t have that size.”

So UK has that going for it, as well as playing at Rupp Arena, where it “hasn’t lost many games recently,” as Anderson said.

If he defines “recently” as “within the last three years,” he is absolutely correct.

Can his team end that stretch by playing the way they want to play — even if that risks playing right into UK’s hands?

“You just have to give yourself a chance to make it happen,” Anderson said. “You have to be within striking distance.”

Depending on how fast UK gets out in front, the Cats could pull away early.

And unlike most other teams who have a speed-up-the-pace alternative plan, Arkansas wouldn’t be able to change anything about it.

Ultimatum given. Get tougher.

On Friday, Calipari said his team had two issues to fix: toughness and communication. He saw the latter improve against the Volunteers. He saw the former repeated.

“Same guys,” Calipari said. “Pushed, shoved, couldn’t come up with balls, and were accepting it.”

Calipari won’t.

“We better get tougher, or we’ve got issues.”

In a way, the fact that Calipari is so focused on only one issue is a good thing. That means everything else is more or less falling into place. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Anthony Davis have grabbed the reigns for this team. Terrence Jones appears on his way back — maybe not to being a 52-point scoring superstar, but to being what he needs to be — and while Doron Lamb and Darius Miller can get better, Calipari is confident they will make it.

Which leaves the issue of toughness. Against Tennessee, a team loaded with big post players, it showed.

Tennessee freshman Jarnell Stokes proved it the most. In his first game of the season — he was in high school until the spring — Stokes didn’t know much about the offense, didn’t know much about the college game. But his massive 6-foot-8, 250-pound frame was enough to push UK around. He finished with 9 points on 4 of 5 shooting.

While UK outrebounded Tennessee by three — and better yet, holding the Volunteers to 9 out of 34 possible offensive rebounds — Calipari thought the margin was misleading.

“The reality is, every tough ball, they got it,” Calipari said. “Until the very end.”

Part of that problem, as Calipari sees it, is players willing to concede rebounds to Kidd-Gilchrist and Davis. The pair account for 17.9 of UK’s 40.7 rebounds per game. A better team effort is needed.

“I’d rather them bump heads and knock it out of bounds against us,” Calipari said, referring to the rest of the team, “than have us go half speed and have their guy get it.”

As it stands, UK being out-toughed allows the opposition to dictate the game. Calipari wants that role to be reversed.

“Before this ends,” Calipari said, “if we want to be special, you’ll be able to watch us and say, that doesn’t have an effect on him anymore.”

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In a 65-62 win at Tennessee, Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist toppled the Volunteers with 35 points and 20 rebounds combined.

In crunch time, it was not a road-tested veteran who took over the game. It was that freshman pair, scoring 13 of UK’s last 18 points, who got it done.

Even better for UK, they’re learning, and it’s showing.

Late in the game, Davis got the ball on the left block. He posted up — something he rarely does — and gave a quick shoulder fake before rising up for a baby hook.

“I definitely developed that,” Davis said. “Work on it every day with coaches.”

It was a shot he couldn’t have made before he got to UK.

“That shot he made, in that situation, first time in his life,” Calipari said. “He hadn’t made a shot like that in high school.”

Another play: Doron Lamb threw a lob Davis’ way, but it was too far away from the basket for Davis to finish it in one leap. Instead, he caught the ball while twirling, came down, and sprung back up.

The play combined his freakish freakishness with a learned knowledge of how to handle the situation. Calipari said on Friday Davis was coming along faster than he expected; Davis’ thoughtful play was an example of that notion.

“What would he do in other games?” Calipari said. “Dunk it anyway. So he’s learned.”

Kidd-Gilchrist, meanwhile, learned to fearlessly take a shot. With 4:55 to play and UK up one, Kidd-Gilchrist got the ball behind the arc with space in front of him. He’s a 32 percent 3-pointer shooter on the season and had missed 3 of 10 shots up to that point.

“I bet he didn’t know he had missed a few shots before he shot that three,” Calipari said. “All he knew was, that ball was going down.”

Kidd-Gilchrist let it go, and that ball went down.

“He trusts me, so that’s one thing,” Kidd-Gilchrist said, referring to his coach.

Sitting beside him at the post-game press conference, Calipari was quick to jump in: “I would have been mad if he didn’t shoot it.”

There’s not much to be mad at when it comes to Kidd-Gilchrist and Davis. The pair carried UK to another conference win, its second on the road in the span of a week, matching last year’s total.

In the process, the Cats are learning about themselves, too. UK entered halftime after 3:45 of terrible basketball — zero made shots, a technical foul on Calipari — that followed its first lead of the game. In the locker room, players reminded each other that “we didn’t come all the way down here to lose this game,” Davis said.

That meets the requirements of Calipari’s favorite attribute, the “will to win.” Find a way to make a play.

“Winning basketball games,” Calipari said of Kidd-Gilchrist, “happens because of guys like this.”

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Photo by Mike Weaver | Staff

South Carolina guard Bruce Ellington couldn’t make sense of it.

Anthony Davis’ shot-blocking prowess was well known before the Gamecocks played UK. But Ellington watched his teammates keep shooting, and shooting, and shooting, even as Davis kept swatting their attempts away.

“I don’t know why my teammates kept going in there,” Ellington said told Davis after he recorded seven blocks. “They know you’re going to block it.”

The blocks have become common practice for Davis, who is two away from setting the single-season freshman record and six away from setting the overall single-season record.

Davis has noticed that opponents have caught on to his lurking presence in the paint. While he’s not surprised when post players shoot over him — “because that’s their job,” Davis said — he is surprised when guards drive the lane on him.

“There’s still some guys who still try to go to the hole, but I think I changed a lot of guys’ mindsets,” Davis said. “I see (that) once I block one, and they get the ball in the same spot, they pump fake and pass it back out.”

Pass it out, or settled for jumpers — but even that doesn’t mean opponents are safe from Davis’ lengthy reach. According to the Courier-Journal’s Kyle Tucker, of his 78 blocks, 25 came on layups and 53 came on jumpers, including seven on 3-pointers.

“The best shot blockers I have seen are the ones that let people release the ball and then go get it,” head coach John Calipari said, “and that’s what he does.”

Davis said blocking shots was a natural, not an acquired, skill. His well-known growth spurt packaged fast-twitch muscles with length, a combination perfectly suited to stopping a ball before it gets very far away from the shooter’s hands.

“I think 100 percent of it is instincts,” Davis said. “It’s all about timing. You never know when a guy’s going to shoot, so you have to time it. … There’s nothing more to it.”

The way Davis says it makes it sound so easy, but his natural skills have resulted in a bevy of astounding block-related statistics (see table, left).

Davis said he doesn’t get caught up in them. It takes his focus away from the court, and the court is where he does what he must to help the team win.

That was evident against South Carolina, when Ellington came away impressed.

“You’re really long man, you block everything,” Ellington said. “I never played nobody like that.”

There’s no hiding from Davis on the court.

And there’s no hiding the record books as Davis rapidly approaches the top.

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Photo courtesy of Rebecca Croomes | The Auburn Plainsman

Three things to watch for when UK travels to Tennessee on Saturday:

1. Anthony Davis is closing in on multiple school block records — The swat machine has 78 blocks, one away from tying Jamaal Magloire’s single-season freshman record and five away from tying the overall single-season record, shared by Melvin Turpin and Andre Riddick.

And remember: He’s done this in 17 games. It took Riddick 34 games, Turpin 31 and Magloire 40.

The only question: will he break one or both records at Tennessee? He’s averaging 4.6 blocks per game but has five games with six or more blocks.

However, the Volunteers aren’t the most block-prone team. It only gets blocked 2.7 times per game. Then again, they have yet to encounter a man like Anthony Davis.

2. A (bigger) road test — Tennessee represents a step up from Auburn on the mythological “road challenge scale.” Even though Tennessee is worse than usual — an 8-7 record — the Volunteers will have a better environment and a better chance of beating UK in its second conference road game.

Tennessee beat Florida at home last week, so the team knows it can topple a ranked opponent. The Cats hope they learned what it takes to succeed on the road from its uncomfortable win against Auburn.

A particular area that Tennessee could use to pull off the upset? Offensive rebounding. The Volunteers are a pretty good team on its own boards, pulling down 33.9 percent of all available rebounds. UK got killed on the boards by Auburn for all but the closing minutes. It needs to take the late-game tenacity and apply it from the opening tip.

3. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s production — The freshman forward has seen a slight dip in production. Since he recorded 24 points and 19 rebounds against Louisville, he’s had a combined 25 points and 19 rebounds in the past three games.

He scored less than 10 points in each of those three games, something he had only done twice before this season. And on those two occurrences, it was because of foul trouble — he played 22 and 19 minutes in those two games. The last three games, he’s played 31, 37 and 30 minutes.

Kidd-Gilchrist deserves credit for maintaining his customary energy and effort through the slight scoring swoon. He provides a lot more to the team than just points and rebounds, and he’s continued that.

But he’s still UK’s second-leading scorer (13.2 per game) and rebounder (7.5). See if he can have another breakout game against Tennessee.

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It didn’t need to be pretty or inspirational. In its second road game of the year, UK just needed a win.
UK got it.

A 23-6 run to end the game led UK (16-1, 2-0 SEC) to a 68-53 victory, and UK’s players did what they needed to down the stretch. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, known for his energy and tenacity, brought both on a chasedown block of a layup late in the game. Doron Lamb and Darius Miller, the team’s shooters, each hit a key 3-pointer as UK finally pulled away.

Would it have been more encouraging if UK handled Auburn from the outset? Yes, absolutely. In fact, the Cats should have. Auburn is not a good team. UK has the experience and the talent to (theoretically) take care of business on the road.

That’s not how things go, though, and that’s not how things went. And it’s not a bad sign. Games like this are the most valuable teaching tool in the climb toward March. If last season’s 2-6 record taught us anything, it’s to be patient with the results of early season road games (even if those results come against mediocre teams).

The inability to cruise to a win, however, was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. John Calipari had hammered home the difficulty of winning on the road in the SEC all week, pointing out last year’s 2-6 record in such games.

True to form, Auburn came out fired up. UK seemed unable to grasp that its opponent would bring extra energy.

“They wanted it worse than we did. They had a desire,” Calipari said after the game. “If we don’t play like a team on a mission, we’re going to lose games.”

The Cats were crushed on the boards, and its usually stingy defense allowed a pedestrian Auburn offense to look competent.

Deep in the second half against Auburn, with the score still tied and with UK unable to break open the game, Calipari’s face as he sat down in a timeout had a look of resigned acceptance. Struggling against Auburn was not how he wanted it to go. But maybe it was how the game had to go.

“We have to enjoy that this is how the games are going to be,” Calipari said.

That sentiment may not sound enticing for UK. Fighting to a win over Auburn isn’t the most encouraging result.

But it was still the result UK needed.

1. The road will be hard, again — Last year, UK went 2-6 in SEC road games. This year, UK lost its one and only road game, at Indiana, before playing Auburn. As John Calipari expected, UK struggled matching the intensity of the home team until a late 13-2 run that included big 3-pointers from Darius Miller and Doron Lamb.

Entering the game, UK had the SEC’s highest per-game rebounding margin, and Auburn had the second-lowest. But in the first half, UK was outrebounded by 10. And Auburn had outrebounded opponents by 8 total, for the entire season, in all combined games. UK also struggled shooting the ball, making 40.4 percent of its shots.

UK struggling on the road shouldn’t be a surprise. It happens with teams, both young and old. But it would be a lot easier for UK to stomach if it came against an opponent besides Auburn.

Still, if last year taught Calipari, the players and us any lesson, it’s to be patient when determining how much to read into road games, especially one this early in the year.

2. Players did what they had to do for the win — The double-digit win is deceiving, but give UK credit for finding its way late in the game. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, known for his energy, brought it on a key block of a layup after getting beat on a backdoor cut. Doron Lamb and Darius Miller, the team’s shooters, hit a clutch 3-pointer each. Anthony Davis did his usual thing, scoring 14 points with six rebounds.

It was enough to get UK its first road win of the season. Next up: at Tennessee on Saturday.

3. The defense wasn’t up to its usual effectiveness. The SEC’s most efficient defense let an all-too-pedestrian Auburn offense shoot 41.4 percent, the first opponent to hit the 40 percent mark in five games against UK. Especially strange was Auburn’s effectiveness getting points in the post. UK has the nation’s best two-point defense, but Auburn made 20 of 39 two-pointers.

The defense has been what’s made UK special so far this season. When the defense is average, as it was against Auburn, UK’s play suffers drastically.

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