John Calipari says Kentucky got bullied by South Carolina: "I saw men and I saw boys."
The headline says it all. John Calipari spoke endlessly in his postgame interviews about how Kentucky got bullied by South Carolina on Tuesday night. Anyone who watched the 79-62 loss for the Wildcats saw it plain as day.
“I saw men and I saw boys,” Calipari told Tom Leach on radio after the loss. “They just played so much rougher than us and whether it was post defense — they banged us on drives, they banged us. We were trying to dance with the ball, and the minute you dance they pushed up and then you couldn’t get to the basket. Now you’re driving for a layup and he’s riding you a little bit. We missed six layups in the first half. You can’t win a game like this. You can’t go 2-10 from the three (in the first half).”
South Carolina dictated how this game would play out from the opening tip. It started with the Gamecocks feeding 6-foot-8, 260-pound BJ Mack in the paint early on and continued by bumping Kentucky’s guards from the perimeter all the way to the rim. Nothing was coming easy. The referees weren’t going to give the ‘Cats any free whistles, either. Kentucky had to fight back but couldn’t even put up its fists.
“When you’re playing a team that’s like this, you have to take the ball by the man, not dance,” Calipari added. “And that could be drive the catch, so it’s thrown to you, you’re already running. But you want to dance. I’m gonna make three moves, and each time you bounce and he gets closer and closer you try to get around him now, and he’s into your body.”
Fifth-year guard Antonio Reeves said South Carolina was the most physical team Kentucky has played all season. After an otherworldly debut on Saturday, Zvonimir Ivisic looked like a shell of the player we saw against Georgia. “It just got too rough for him,” Calipari said. DJ Wagner, Justin Edwards, and Reed Sheppard were essentially non-factors all night — nine combined points on 3-15 shooting. The freshmen looked shell-shocked by how energetic and physical South Carolina was. The skinny seven-foot frames of Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso stood no chance.
Up until this point, Kentucky’s defensive issues could always be countered with the top-scoring offense in the country. But it’s tough to score when the pace is flipped in South Carolina’s favor. The Gamecocks slowed the game down and made it a point to rough up UK. It worked to perfection.
For whatever reason, Kentucky had no response. The blueprint is now out.
“Every team’s gonna play the same way: go beat them up,” Calipari said. “You got to do some stuff in practice to make this rough.”
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