Has Kentucky turned the corner on defense? 'Hopefully this is going to be a breakthrough.'

ZGeogheganKSR

A new Cal-ism dropped a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been getting plenty of use ever since.

“Let’s improve our defense by 10 percent,” John Calipari said once again, this time after Kentucky beat Ole Miss 75-63 on Tuesday night.

8-10 percent better on defense — that’s what Calipari is looking for right now. He’s been preaching the idea for the past few games now. Without calculating the actual numbers, Kentucky looked to be at least “10 percent” better on defense against the Rebels. It’s tough to quantify, but holding Ole Miss to 37.5 percent overall shooting including a 5-22 mark from long range is definitely an improvement.

Defense is the one thing separating Kentucky from being a “good” team to being a “great” team — a team that can make a deep run in March. Kentucky’s effort against Ole Miss was a step in the right direction. Now it’s time to do it again on the road this weekend against No. 13 Auburn.

“Hopefully this is going to be a breakthrough for us defensively,” Sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso said postgame. “We got all we need offensively. We’re right there offensively, but we just got to still lock in defensively. And hopefully this game is going to be a turning point for us. We got a big one coming on Saturday, we gotta stay locked in. If we do what we did today, or even more, I think we stand a chance of winning that game. It all comes down to defense.“

Onyenso was a key piece in Kentucky shutting down Ole Miss. His 10 blocks tied Hall of Famer David Robinson’s Rupp Arena single-game record. Reed Sheppard swiped five steals for the second time in three games. Adou Thiero and Justin Edwards were digging in on defense. Overall, the Wildcats were more aggressive as a whole and even implemented a light press.

According to the players, focusing almost exclusively on that end of the floor in practice — “Mainly the whole practice, really,” Antonio Reeves said — over the last couple of weeks has made a significant impact. The results are slowly showing up on the hardwood.

“The difference today was we came together saying we have to lock in. It’s on us. The coaches can talk, teach as much as they want to, but if we as individuals and as a team, don’t come together and play as one, nothing is going to change,” Onyenso added. “So we had a talk that we got to make a difference defensively. We really have to. The last game we lost, during practice we wasn’t focusing on offense. All of our attention was on defense. We said we have to lock in defensively. Every time during practice, all we really focused on was defense. Hopefully it’s paying off. It was a good one today, we’re gonna get another one Saturday if we lock in defensively.”

Putting together the same kind of defensive performance against Auburn will be a tougher task than it was against Ole Miss. The Rebels are a respectable offensive team, but the Tigers rank top 20 in the country, per KenPom. Auburn scores efficiently from all three areas and doesn’t turn the ball over.

But progress is being made. Even at this stage in the season, it’s about baby steps. Kentucky just needs to improve enough on defense to allow the offense to take over and win games.

“We was ridiculous in the first half (against Ole Miss),” Reeves said. “We definitely locked in, made sure we stayed to the gameplan, made sure we did everything right. We did that all game. We got six kills (three straight defensive possessions without a score). We shut ’em down.”