UT Loss a Painful – Yet Needed – Lesson in Toughness
Through 20 minutes, Kentucky made it look like road play in the Southeastern Conference would be no problem.
The second half at Tennessee told a very different story. The Wildcats have a ways to go.
“It’s a great lesson,” John Calipari said. “When you’re playing this game, if one team wants it more than the other and is willing to play that way, you’re losing the game. That team’s going to win. And a lot of times, it’s—that’s what I want my team to be. We just obviously—for a half we looked OK and then second half we didn’t look too good.”
The Wildcats took a 37-29 lead into the break, riding an 11-point, three-block, two-steal half from PJ Washington that may have been the best of his young career. That was rendered a mere footnote as Washington was limited to five second-half minutes by cramps and the No. 23/22 Volunteers (10-4, 1-2 SEC) bullied No. 17/14 UK (12-3, 2-1 SEC) in the second half en route to a 76-65 win.
“Basketball is a game of runs and obviously we made a good run in the first half,” Wenyen Gabriel said. “We came out really excited, but second half they made their run and I don’t think we came out with an answer for that.”
At the center of it all for the Vols in the second half was Grant Williams. Williams didn’t connect on the field goal in the first half going head to head with Washington, but went wild for 16 points after halftime to finish with 18 for the game.
“They just got manhandled by men,” Coach Cal said. “We couldn’t grab a rebound. We got shoved out of the way on post-ups. Guys were coming over saying, ‘I can guard him.’ He just scored three straight times on you and-ones. You can’t guard him. I guess you could guard him; you just can’t stop him from scoring. Williams was really good, but the rest of them were too.”
Kentucky was outrebounded by eight and committed nine turnovers in the second half, unable to cope with a physical Tennessee team eager to bounce back from back-to-back losses to open SEC play. The Cats can expect to face similarly motivated teams the rest of the way, as well as that same game plan if they don’t adjust.
“I’ve got the toughness issue because people, what they do is they watch the tape and they say, ‘Just throw these guys around,” Calipari said. “They will not fight you back. Just throw ’em and post ’em hard. Go right at them. Don’t fade away. If a shot goes up, bum-rush them. Go rebound a missed shot. They’re going to let you run by them.’ I mean, that’s what you’re going to see on tape and it’s something we’ve gotta fix day to day.”
Calipari has known the Cats have needed to work on toughness for a while now, but Saturday was the first time the issue was so plainly laid bare. It’s a painful lesson, but potentially a necessary one.
“I hate to say it, sometimes you gotta get hit in the mouth to learn,” Calipari said. “The question is: Do they understand what just happened to them? And I believe they do.”
Gabriel, who fouled out with nearly 12 minutes left, certainly sounded like a player who understands.
“I think we can learn the importance of fighting,” Gabriel said. “I think that we kind of let up in the second half and might have got complacent from what we did in the first half. It was kind of tough without PJ in there in the second half to battle with No. 2 over there (Grant Williams), but that’s when we need other guys to step up and fight. I think when we watch the tape of this game, we’re going to learn the importance of that, especially road games in environments like this.”
