Isaiah Jackson, left, tries to block Olivier Sarr's shot in practice. (UK Athletics Photo)
The Kentucky basketball season hasn’t even started yet and I’ve already seen two quotes from John Calipari’s preseason press conference that could raise red flags to anyone that has watched Calipari’s teams play over the last 13 years.
The first one was this. “We have shot blockers — we just don’t block any shots,” he said. “I don’t understand it, but we don’t. We have length but we’re not really good defensively right now, and I think a lot of it is team defense.”
Some defensive lapses should be expected from teammates that hadn’t even shaken hands until a few months ago but not a total inability to play team defense and block shots. Most great shot blockers are naturals at what they do. They love to block shots more than score points. Most defensive players love to play defense, to get stops, create turnovers and turn them into easy transition baskets.
I understand if early in the season freshmen players on the perimeter are getting beat off the dribble or getting hung up on screens or maybe even losing their man in transition but not blocking shots means that a 7-0 upperclassman named Olivier Sarr and an extremely athletic 6-9 Isaiah Jackson aren’t doing what should come naturally — challenging shots at the rim.
That doesn’t even consider the plethora of athletic players on this team that are 6-6 or better and can jump out of the gym. Kentucky is loaded with long, athletic players so these things aren’t a good sign for UK fans hoping that this will be a dominate defensive team.
The second quote should be even more concerning. “(We) can’t have body language (and we) can’t have meltdowns,” Calipari said. “You’ve gotta be with these guys and really locked in. Yesterday showed us that we have that in us. Oh my gosh. Let’s hope we got it out, because if that becomes who we are, whew, going to be rough.”
Those fans that have watched Calipari teams demonstrate body language issues and meltdowns in the past probably also noticed that those issues went hand-in-hand with selfish play and losses to lesser talented teams. Lots of losses.
Think back to some of the weaker teams Calipari has had at UK. They usually didn’t lose because they lacked talent. They lost because they lacked teamwork and effort. They lacked the willingness to play for the name on the front instead of the name on the back. They lacked the desire to win at all cost.
Remember the 2013 Wildcats? The team that featured Nerlens Noel in the middle as a shot blocker. Remember how the dynamics of that team changed dramatically after he went down with a season ending injury. Gone was the magic eraser in the middle. The player that could block a shot and then get out on the break and finish with a dunk at the other end. Yes, they still had talented players but without a natural shot blocker in the middle that team struggled its way to an NIT berth that season.
Think back to the 2017-2018 Wildcats team. That team was loaded with long, athletic players. Kevin Knox and Wenyen Gabriel at 6-9, PJ Washington at 6-9 and Nick Richards and Sacha Killeya-Jones at 6-11 and yet they were the eighth best shot blocking team in the SEC. They struggled with teamwork averaging only 11.3 assists per game — good enough for 14th in the SEC — and they struggled in the NCAA Tournament losing in an upset to No. 9-seed Kansas State in the Sweet 16.
Now, am I saying that this year’s team (if a season is actually played) will struggle to win games and be an underachiever because they don’t have guys blocking shots or working together as a team early in the year? No. What I am saying is that sometimes if teams struggle to play for their teammates before the season even starts then it’s doubly difficult to change that and achieve team goals at the end of the season.
Basketball is still a team sport, at least in college, and it requires five players to work together on offense and defense. But if a team consists of five individuals more concerned about their stats, how many minutes they played and how many shots they took, then it’s very tough to win a championship. Probably impossible.
Basketball is a team sport. All these players have played it before at a very high level. Let’s just hope that these issues are a reflection of the age and inexperience of the players and doesn’t define who they are. Meltdowns, body language and no shot blocking might just be players trying to find out where they fit in on this team.
But if it’s not, coach Cal needs to find out early who the five guys are that want to play team basketball and help them achieve their dreams of winning a championship — even if it creates some more meltdowns and body language.
— Keith Peel, Contributing Writer
