Let’s get something out of the way: John Calipari’s Kentucky team defeated cross-town school Transylvania 93-57 Wednesday night before 21,024 fans at Rupp Arena. Following a sluggish start, UK won its first game of the year, easily averting a 100-year upset in the waiting to a Division III school with the help of Terrence Jones’ 22 points and 12 rebounds.
But despite nearly doubling up the Pioneers, Coach Cal maintained a work-in-progress mentality following his team’s first real dress rehearsal.
“We have a long way to go,” Calipari said. “I think everyone knows it. … The good news is everybody in this building saw it; anybody that watched on TV saw it. They also see we’re not tough enough.”
Hmmm, sound familiar? Rewind one week ago to the Blue-White Scrimmage.
“Everybody’s excited because you saw a lot of high-flying dunking, blocking, tipping,” Calipari said after that scoring barrage last week. “That doesn’t win.”
Maybe Coach Cal wasn’t just blowing smoke. Maybe it wasn’t just coach’s speak. Maybe he’s got a point.
After all, 230 combined points in a scrimmage is a ton of points in whatever way you choose to look at it. If you choose to view it from a defensive standpoint, as Calipari did after the scrimmage, one begins to understand that Kentucky, in spite of its gargantuan size, towering length and scorching speed, is far from defensively sound in the early going.
Freshman forward Anthony Davis (his injury was just a cramp) finished with eight blocks, including a volleyball spike into a Transy cheerleader’s face in the second half, but Kentucky’s perimeter defense allowed the Pioneers to bury 12 3-pointers, most of them coming early.
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