Kentucky basketball opened its season with a resounding victory against Transylvania 94-66 this evening at Rupp Arena. Despite this, there is one obvious area of improvement: three-point shooting.

The Cats went 1-13 from deep in the game, with guard Quade Green being the only player to find the bottom of the net.

“That’s unusual with this team” Green said. “But first game, everybody got their jitters out, so I hope next game we have a better shooting job.”

Tyler Herro particularly struggled all night. He ended with four points on 1-8 shooting, going 0-4 from three-point range.

“Great thing for Tyler. I told him ‘You have to get your shot before you catch the ball. This isn’t high school.’” Calipari told reporters after the game. “He went 1-for-8. Now understand, ‘Why did I go 1-for-8?’” 

Green seemed confident in Herro’s ability to overcome a poor first showing.

“[Herro]’s going to get comfortable,” he said. “He was taking all the good shots that he usually takes, he just wasn’t hitting today. But it’s going to come.”

Calipari wasn’t pleased with the performance from behind the arc, but brought some perspective to what transpired.

“We got to make some threes… you know, 1-for-13, and this might be my best shooting team in a while,” he added. “The good news is, we don’t rely on three-point shooting… We could go 1-for-13 and still score a lot of points because of how we play.”

Indeed, if Kentucky can continuously dominate inside the paint– where they had 62 points Friday night– and on the glass– 52 rebounds to just 18 for Transylvania– they will be able to withstand similar showings from deep.

That said, tonight’s impressive numbers came against a very small Pioneer team, with no one taller than 6-foot-8. As they traverse their schedule and play teams more on their size level, those will be hard to sustain. Sooner or later, consistent three-point shooting will have to become a valuable piece of their offensive attack if they plan to accomplish their lofty goals for this season.