Buzz Williams: Kentucky is a "different" team since lineup change

On3 imageby:Nick Roush01/22/23

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Not unlike many college basketball coaches, Buzz Williams is a quirky character. Part of the Texas A&M coach’s personality is his emotional, unfiltered actions on the sideline. He tells it like he sees it. Saturday he saw a different team at Rupp Arena.

“If you only looked at those guys in the last two games in comparison to their first four (SEC) games, statistically a different team. In those two games, they averaged 28 free throw attempts and in the first four the attempts was in the teens. Their job on the glass, much better. Their pace, a little different,” he paused. “I think their team is different.”

Williams added, “Without trying to coach their team, it seemed as though they had a different collective thought of what they were going to accomplish and so that’s how we tried to prepare.”

The big change was all in the Wildcats’ lineup. Cason Wallace, Jacob Toppin, CJ Fredrick, Antonio Reeves and Oscar Tshiebwe have become John Calipari’s go-to five over the last three games, all three wins. That lineup was in the game when A&M cut the Kentucky lead to two with 4:37 remaining. The Wildcats out-scored the visitors 13-6 to close out the win.

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“The biggest thing is you’ve got to guard all five guys, but there’s another guy on the court that you’ve got to pay special attention to, the kid, what’s his name? 34,” Calipari joked. “So now all of a sudden you have everybody on the court, they can’t really — and if they do, it’s what happened, you’re going to get threes.”

A&M’s plan of attack was not so different than some of UK’s other previous foes: try to make somebody not named Oscar Tshiebwe beat you. The Wildcats obliged by knocking down 11-of-32 three-pointers. A&M limited the Big O to only seven points, but no matter how many guys they threw at him, they could not keep Oscar and the Kentucky Wildcats off the glass. On the offensive end UK out-rebounded A&M 17-4, turning into 16 second chance points. Tshiebwe still grabbed 17 boards.

“Mathematically when a team shoots 18 more balls than you do it’s just hard to overcome,” said Buzz Williams.

Early in the season, Kentucky did not make life difficult on its opponents. Now the opponents are trying a little bit of everything to slow down the new-look Wildcats and nothing is working.

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2024-03-28