Isaiah Jackson had 16 rebounds against LSU Saturday and may need to dominate the boards again at Alabama for UK to win. (SEC Photo)
Several times since his team lost 85-65 to Alabama, Kentucky coach John Calipari has mentioned that an Alabama player asked him late in the game what the score was — an obvious way to taunt/poke fun at the Wildcats. Kentucky center Olivier Sarr remembers Alabama making a lot of 3’s — something it does almost every game — against UK.
“I think we didn’t follow the scouting report as much as we should have been and that cost us the game by a lot,” Sarr said.
However, he also remembers a lot of talking by the Alabama players while they were crushing Kentucky going into tonight’s return match at Alabama.
“A lot of guys talk whether it’s trash or whether it’s just to get you out of your game. I’m not going to pinpoint exactly everything they said. We don’t need to do that,” Sarr said Monday. “But all we know that they talked a lot. It’s not part of our game. We’re just trying to focus on what we do and we’ll try to do that at the best of our abilities, and that’s what we’re going to try and do on Tuesday.”
Sarr hopes that loss to Alabama brings the “best out” of Kentucky tonight.
“It’s a good challenge. We’re going to war over there and I know that the guys are ready. They talked a lot during the game, so we’ve got good motivation,” Sarr said.
For a change, Kentucky will be the hunter, not the hunted. Alabama has won nine straight games and is 8-0 in SEC play. Every other SEC team has at least two league losses and Tennessee, Florida, LSU and Kentucky all have three SEC losses.
“Everybody is hunting them right now. They’re in first place. They’re undefeated in the conference. We’ve just got to play better than we did the last time. We’ve got to do some things differently. But they’re the hot team in the league right now, so we’ve got to give them our best,” UK assistant coach Bruiser Flint said.
Calipari said he was not going to look at the game tape after the Alabama beating. Maybe he didn’t but his staff did and several things stood out.
“They play with a lot more toughness then we play with. The other thing about the game, and it’s been our Achilles heel all year, points off turnovers. I want to say they had 28 points off turnovers. If we have that high of a number, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing,” Flint said.
“They’re even more dangerous because they’re probably the best offensive team in the league. So, if you give it to them off turnovers, they’re going to convert them. So, points off turnovers, physical play, that’s going to be a big part of this game.”
Flint knows Alabama will put up 3-point shots. He joked that Tide players rarely shoot lay-ups even in pregame drills because the “3-ball is what they do” and they want to shoot all of them they can.
“They’ve shot it extremely well. That’s one reason why they’ve gotten away from a lot of teams because they can come down consecutively and just start knocking them down. If you can’t keep them pace, then it’s a tough struggle. We’ve got to do a better job of probably chasing them off the 3-point line, but I bet you that’s every team they play that talks about that,” Flint said.
“Again, it goes back to the whole turnover thing. If you’re not giving them the ball, if you make them play in front of you, then you’ve got a better chance of playing defense.”
Alabama has a lot of players, led by one-time UK recruit John Petty, who can hit 3-pointers. Their outside game is not limited like Kentucky’s is this season.
“They’re going to make tough 3’s because that’s what they do. We’re not going to stop them from shooting 3’s. They’re going to try to get 30 to 40 3-point shots off a game. So, our biggest thing is, like I said before, is we’ve got to do a better job of contesting and we can’t turn the ball over to them so they get unguarded 3’s in transition because we turned the ball over,” Flint said.
“A big deal is going to be how we handle the ball. Make them play a little bit of defense and try to do as best we can contesting the 3-point shot because they’re going to shoot them.”
Kentucky was hesitant to contest 3-pointers against Alabama the first game because UK defenders could not stop Tide players from driving to the basket if they contested 3’s.
“Sometimes you’ve got to make them put it on the floor and shoot a layup. That’s one of the things, one of the strategies you have with a team that shoots a lot of 3’s is, at times you’re going to give up layups,” Flint said. “You guys (in the media_ will be complaining about giving up layups when we’re trying to not let them shoot any 3’s.
“But they’re a good offensive team. That’s why they’re undefeated in the league. They’re tough to guard. They have tough matchups no matter who you’re playing against. That’s why they’re undefeated in the conference and they’re playing well because they shoot the ball extremely well.”
