During his call-in show this week, John Calipari acknowledged the recent struggles but reassured, “We’re going to break through. We’re not there yet, but we are going to break through.”
Why does he have that confidence? Calipari says this team is “Built for March” and after Tuesday’s win against Ole Miss, Calipari clarified what he means by that.
“In the NCAA tournament, you can’t score 65, 63, 62. You can maybe in one game but you’ll get beat. You’ve got to be able to score points. We can do it,” he said. “You’ve got to have a player that can go off in a game so you can advance. We have a couple of those. You can’t be a high turnover team because the team you are going to play, they are in the NCAA tournament. They are going to be a low-turnover team. We are a low turnover team.”
Calipari is correct in his assessment. Powerful offenses and elite talent have helped many teams make runs in the NCAA Tournament, especially of late (i.e. Miami (FL) last season). However, Kentucky has some areas of weakness that can end this team’s hopes early, specifically a lack of physicality and poor defense.
“The issue is will we be being physical enough,” Calipari said. “The reason we were physical today: DJ is physical, Tre is physical, Ugonna is physical, Adou is physical. Now you’re playing four of your top eight are physical players. They are going to bang. That was one of our issues. 50-50 balls. We missed some again today. Justin didn’t dive up for the ball. He tried to pick it up with one hand and threw it to them. 50-50 rebounds. Tre helped us today. We are still not where we need to be. Lastly, defensively, you got to be more connected. So, if we get those things squared away.”
Kentucky certainly has one of the best offenses in the country, but as Calipari said the physicality and defense have to improve. After holding Ole Miss, a KenPom top-30 offense to just 63 points, maybe that is a promsing sign of things to come.
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