KT Turner explains what he learned about Kentucky during Kansas loss

Kentucky missed another opportunity over the weekend in their 77-68 loss to Kansas. Even so, assistant coach KT Turner said that it taught him one very key thing about the Wildcat players.

During his media availability on Monday, Turner said the defeat to the Jayhawks actually taught him how far their team has come as far as being able to knock off top competition. Besides a few defensive slip-ups that they’re now cleaning up, he recognizes just as well as everyone else that the Wildcats were in Saturday’s game until the end.

“(I learned) just that we can beat teams like that, first of all. We were right there in the game with them,” said Turner. “But we’ve just got to get better at a couple of things defensively that we’re going to be working on and that we worked on yesterday and today.”

Kentucky led by as much as five early on before Kansas finished the first half on an 11-5 run over the final six minutes. From then on, although the Wildcats pushed toward a comeback, they never took the lead again. Still, the game never got outside of four points down the stretch until a quartet of Jayhawk jumpers, three of which came from distance, iced it.

How close the Wildcats were in this one suggests just how far they’ve come over the course of January. However, if they want to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive, Kentucky will have to keep their momentum going and come out on top more often than not in February.

Jacob Toppin shares optimistic outlook after Kansas loss

It’s hard to look at the bigger picture right after a loss the magnitude of Kentucky‘s against Kansas Saturday night, especially after the way the season has panned out for the Wildcats thus far.

UK forward Jacob Toppin provided some veteran leadership with some words of wisdom that he and his teammates can take away from moving forward. Kentucky had a chance to win late, but they couldn’t overcome the Jayhawks and there’s nothing Toppin, or anyone else, can do about it — so it’s time to move on.

“Considering that we could have still won the game, obviously it’s not the end of the world. We understand that,” Toppin said postgame. “We’re still together. We’re just going to watch film and get better.”