Dontaie Allen put on a show Saturday night with 23 points against Mississippi State. (SEC Photo)
John Calipari insists he didn’t get ejected on purpose midway of the second half Saturday night at Mississippi State. I am not sure I am buying it. Remember before UK played at Louisville the Kentucky coach reminded everyone that last year’s team took off when he got ejected at Arkansas and the team came back and won.
The same thing happened this time.
Calipari was ejected with 9:04 left in regulation play. When Mississippi State hit three free throws, UK was down 55-46 — its largest deficit in the game. However, with Calipari pacing in the locker room and watching the game on his phone, Kentucky rallied behind the scoring and 3-point shooting of Dontaie Allen to win 78-73 in double overtime.
“I know you’re going to say ‘You do this on purpose.’ Look, the first (technical) one, yes I did. Because there were two or three things that happened, and we weren’t going to have a chance to win if it didn’t change,” Calipari said after the game
“The second one was, you know, okay.”
Yeah, we know. He figured it could not hurt and he was right. With Calipari off the bench, Kentucky played its most spirited, toughest basketball of the season.
“How about my staff? All those guys on the bench, and they stayed in that zone (defense). Everybody’s been telling me we need to play more zone, but I think it’s going to be a game-to-game thing,” Calipari said.
Calipari admitted he was not sure if it would be a “good thing or bad thing” when he got tossed.
“Then when we started making our run, it was a lot of time. So, I knew it wasn’t four minutes, it was nine,” the UK coach said. “What I did after the game, I snuck in the back of the locker room in the far corner before they came in because I just wanted to enjoy that celebration. I wanted to see it, and I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to remember why I do what I do – to see that kind of stuff. Them doing it without me is even better.”
Center Olivier Sarr said the whole team knew the ejection might happen.
“Knowing the past that Coach has had in games like that. For us, it was just with Coach not being here, we need to execute. We have a great coaching staff. We are just going to be fighting more. That had the spark for us, and it helped us in a way,” Sarr said.
So he thought the ejection was intentional?
“No, I’m not saying that. Coach had emotion in the game, and he was frustrated. It happens, he got tossed out. We had to step in – the entire coaching staff had to step in and lead us to that win,” Sarr said.
