SPOKANE, Wash. — Mark Few is one of John Calipari’s best friends. So is Tom Izzo. So is Rick Barnes. Maybe there’s a theme emerging here. Seems like the guys who know Calipari best are the ones who keep taking him to school. It might be time, then, for Kentucky’s coach to reflect on why that is, which of his habits those buddies keep exploiting, and whether the whole approach could use one of his famous tweaks. Not just the Jedi mind-trick type of tweak he loves, either, but an actual X’s and O’s adjustment.
Because, no, Few and second-ranked Gonzaga didn’t beat the fourth-ranked Wildcats simply by having more “fight” as Calipari has said so many times and said again Sunday. And no, not because of the new and already worn-out excuse that star Oscar Tshiebwe was away from the team so long it has stunted this team’s development. After an 88-72 humiliation here Sunday, it’s time to dig a hole in the permafrost outside Spokane Arena, which turned into exactly the house of horrors Calipari tried to avoid by dodging the on-campus Kennel, and bury it.
No, it’s not ideal for the best player on your team to miss a month of practice, both preseason exhibition games and the first two regular-season games. Sure, when that guy is the greatest collegiate rebounder in at least four decades, his absence forces you to remake the entire shape and function of the team while he’s gone, then try to put it back the way it was when he returns. We’ll even give Calipari this: That process is bound to be a little messy, and look a tad disjointed at first. But the Tshiebwe excuse is no longer valid, period.
Not that it stopped Calipari from trying to use it again Sunday. Same as he did after Kentucky fell apart down the stretch against Michigan State on Tuesday in Indianapolis. That’s right, even as Tshiebwe went for 22 points and 18 rebounds against the Spartans and 20 and 15 against Gonzaga, Calipari would like us to believe that his surgically repaired right knee is to blame for the Wildcats (3-2) whiffing on their first two big tests of a season that began with national championship aspirations. Come on, Cal.
So it’s on Tshiebwe that Kentucky gave up the first eight points of the game Sunday, shot 25 percent in the first half — including 0 of 10 from 3-point range — and found itself trailing by 16 at halftime? Well, yes, apparently.
“I had to change how we were playing offensively at halftime. I couldn’t get Oscar to run the plays right,” Calipari said. “He hasn’t been practicing with us. So I said, ‘Go to the baseline. We’re going to play dribble-drive around you.’ And that’s what we did the whole second half. I ran two plays that were pass, pass, make a play. Couldn’t run a play. Told them, ‘Man, you know, we gotta practice and get together as a team and get better.’ Offensively in the first half, it was so embarrassing that we couldn’t even run a play.”
Final from Spokane. pic.twitter.com/GqqrRhdVnt
— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) November 21, 2022
At least he got that part right. It was pitiful and worthy of mocking, which the massive and rowdy student section in an arena-record crowd of 12,333 did plenty. But Calipari is pointing his finger in the wrong direction. Even if Tshiebwe was a willing fall guy. Even if there’s truth in what Calipari said, that his dominant center was out of sorts.
“I really kind of hurt my team,” Tshiebwe said, “because I started slow. I was not really stepping up like I should. I’ve got to get better.”
Maybe so. At what point, though, is it solely the responsibility of the head coach to figure out what his guys can and can’t do in the moment and game plan accordingly? Any frank assessment of Kentucky’s lousy week reaches the obvious conclusion that Izzo and Few coached circles around their old pal. They shared laughs, told tall tales over dinners together, hugged Calipari tightly before the game and then used everything they knew about the stubborn 63-year-old Hall of Famer to beat him with less talent.
That’s the thing. Michigan State was clearly, significantly less talented. But Gonzaga had also just taken a 19-point beating at Texas on Wednesday night and took a 19-point beating from Tennessee in a preseason scrimmage. Both times, their guards got exposed as less than stellar. The Longhorns and Volunteers laid out a blueprint for beating the Bulldogs, especially with what we believed to be terrific guards like Kentucky’s: Space the floor and screen them to death. But Calipari and the Cats didn’t do that.
Sharpshooters CJ Fredrick and Antonio Reeves took tough, contested shots and combined to make just 5 of 22, only 3 of 13 from 3-point range. They also combined to make 3 of 14 shots and 2 of 9 3s against Michigan State. Fredrick was a reliable marksman for two years at Iowa and Reeves for three years at Illinois State, and they’d both been lights-out against lesser competition for Kentucky. But against better teams who are determined to make it harder for them to get clean looks, as both Few and Izzo’s teams were, it was a real struggle.
“We just tried to stay locked in on them,” Few said. “We thought that was a real big key, just not letting them get going. Our guys were totally keyed in on those guards shooting the 3-ball.”
So why didn’t Calipari have a good answer? Yes, Kentucky rallied briefly in the second half, coming back from as many as 18 points down to get within four points with 13 minutes to go, but it was both too big a hole and too flimsy an approach to last. Senior forward Jacob Toppin, after starting 2 of 12 from the field, got hot on long, tough 2-point jumpers. He hit five of his last six and finished with 16 points. Afterward, Few damned him (and by extension, his friend Cal) with praise.
“Those are the epitome of what we call tough 2s,” Few said. “We usually invite those.”
Exactly. That’s the whole point. Kentucky spent most of the night taking exactly the kinds of shots Gonzaga wanted them to take. You can frame it as want-to or fight or whatever other cliche you’d like, but winning basketball happens when you’re in a groove and the other guy is uncomfortable. After Kentucky’s practice Saturday, in which Calipari spent considerable time drilling the importance of making Gonzaga star Drew Timme work for his buckets, Calipari huddled up with his players.
“What Texas did is they forced their will,” he told them. “You force your will on them.”
Instead, Timme attacked Kentucky’s big men, drew 10 fouls, sent Tshiebwe to the bench for long stretches, and got a relatively easy 22 points on 13 shots. Rasir Bolton was better than any guard on Calipari’s bench, pouring in 24 points on 14 shots, and Julian Strawther looked like arguably the best player on the floor, with 20 and 14.
“They were imposing their will on us,” Calipari said. “We talked about it for two days: We have to impose our will on them or you won’t win this game. And we didn’t do it.”
Again, that’s not some nebulous, toughness-based idea. Play harder is not the caveman-simple solution. Gonzaga played better because Gonzaga played smarter. The Zags had a viable plan, and it sure looked like Kentucky didn’t. For Calipari, who constantly preaches accountability for his players, to circle back to the idea that Tshiebwe’s month recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery is the primary reason for that is patently absurd.
Five of the top six players for Kentucky on Sunday were seniors. Entering the game, Reeves had played 93 games in college, point guard Sahvir Wheeler 90, Toppin 87, Tshiebwe 77, Fredrick 57. What’s the point of finally embracing the need for experience by taking that quintet of transfers if you don’t think they’re capable of executing a quality game plan? Five days earlier, after Izzo pantsed him on two late out-of-bounds plays, Calipari was claiming his group just hadn’t had time to work on such things.
Can we just pause to ask: Then what was the Bahamas trip for? Kentucky got extra practice time and four exhibition games this summer to work on … what, exactly? With all of those full-grown men who are apparently old enough to drink but not to run a clever BLOB play?
“We haven’t practiced enough,” Calipari said again, playing a tired tune. “So we were trying to run stuff and, I’ll just be honest with you: The first play of the game, prior to the game, I did it in the huddle, I did it before they walked on the court, and the guy went the wrong way. Like, what just happened? So we have to demand the execution of what we’re trying to do.”
The trouble right now, though, is it’s hard to even tell what that is. Toppin says the players did, in fact, make some “stupid plays.” He included himself in that. “I made some dumb mistakes,” he admitted. But how could a Gonzaga team that looked so bad four days earlier at Texas suddenly be the aggressor against Kentucky? How was it that the Bulldogs made the Wildcats look so bad?
“If you want the honest answer,” Toppin said, pausing for several seconds, “in some moments, guys can’t step up — me included. I didn’t make shots in the first half at all. I didn’t rebound. I’ve got to be better. My teammates have got to be better. We’ve all got to be better.”
Not being able to step up is a whole other issue, isn’t it? There certainly does seem to be some fear in the eyes of a few Cats in their first two tries on the big stage. But that, too, ultimately falls on the coach. Calipari is the one who has to figure out who can handle these moments and who can’t. For the guys who need an early shot of confidence to get rolling in a game, he has to figure out how to get them one. Right now, Kentucky looks like a collection of ill-fitting pieces, and Calipari looks like he’s trying to assemble that puzzle in the dark.
“I’ll just play different guys, whoever wants to fight,” Calipari said Sunday. Maybe that’s the answer, but maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper into the source of this struggle. “Look, I wouldn’t trade my team for any team in the country,” Calipari continued. “I wouldn’t. I’m not happy right now — it shows we’re not ready — but it’s a long season. It’s November.”
That much is true, and this wouldn’t be the first time one of his teams started slow and got it rolling by the end of the year. In fact, he told his players after practice Saturday that they shouldn’t put too much big-game pressure on themselves for this one. No need to play like it’s life or death, he said. This is an early game, just like Kentucky’s blowout wins over North Carolina in December and Kansas in January last season. Both those teams went on to play each other for the national championship.
But if Calipari and these Cats want to do the same, it’s time to ditch the excuses and come up with answers.
(Photo of Oscar Tshiebwe and Nolan Hickman: William Mancebo / Getty Images)
