Kentucky gave up 59 points in the second half

As good as Kentucky’s defense was in the first half, it was terrible in the second. After holding Texas A&M to 26 points in the first 20 minutes, Kentucky allowed 59 in the second, by far the most in a half this season. The Aggies came out on fire, starting the second half on a 17-2 run, which forced John Calipari to call a timeout at 16:16. They hit seven threes, two of them banked in. They couldn’t miss a shot, which made it doubly cruel that Kentucky couldn’t make one.

The Cats did rally to cut the lead to eight with a minute left, but it was all for naught. When asked, Calipari chalked his team’s Jekyll/Hyde tendencies up to immaturity. 

“It’s not frustrating. What it becomes is, why is it happening? Again, you’re so into how you’re playing you can’t give that energy to the team. That’s what young guys do and I can’t seem to get them over that hump. They’re more concerned with how they’re playing and then when they’re concerned, they look really bad individually. You look like you can’t play basketball, you’re not very good. And when you’re in that fighting mode and all of a sudden, all of the good stuff that you have in your body comes out, you really look like a good player and you’re playing for us instead of yourself. There’s not enough trust there yet. It’s not just one guy. We’ve got a bunch of guys not doing the stuff that we need.”

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