Georgia Tech's zone defense kept Olivier Sarr bottled up Sunday. (SEC Photo)
What happened to Kentucky in Sunday’s 79-62 loss to previously winless Georgia Tech?
“If you turn the ball over 20 times and the other team scores 30 points, you’re not beating anybody. Hardest play, fumble balls, got out-toughed again. It is what it is. I’ve got so much work to do,” said Kentucky coach John Calipari.
Calipari again blamed an unfair schedule he put together that put UK’s young team playing all Power-5 schools or veteran teams.
“But you know what? It is what it is and we’re going to go. Now, I’ve told them, I’m not cracking yet. It’s hard to play against a team that goes 40 minutes of zone. At the end, all we did was throw it inside and guess what? We should have done that from the beginning of the game,” Calipari said.
“They went small, and it bothered us. It did. And we knew the way that they started the game that they were thinking about it. But, they spread the court on us and it made it harder.”
So why is he not cracking? Kentucky fans are. Social media was full of fans who quit watching the game in the second half when it was easy to question UK’s effort — and the execution. Turnovers were far more plentiful than good plays.
“We’ve been here before. There’s thing that I could do. Some of the stuff I’ve got to hold them accountable like turning the ball over. I mean again, I’m just telling you we have guys trying to make the hardest play they can make. Why would you just not throw to that man? ‘Because I’m trying to show I can play.’ Well, what happens is you show that you don’t realize, you don’t understand,” Calipari said.
“Just make easy plays and attack. We shot the ball better, did some better things. I thought Terrence (Clarke) did some good stuff. But, they tired us out when they went with the smaller lineup. We had our chances. We turned it over and they got a breakaway layup. So it goes from six and eight and all of a sudden you turn around and its 12, 14.
“What just happened? Turnover, turnover, turnover. So, we’ve got stuff we’ve got to work on. We’ll get back and we’ll go from there.”
