Kentucky's Confidence is Unshaken, "We're moving in the right direction"

by:Nick Roush12/26/20

@RoushKSR

[caption id="attachment_330404" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)[/caption] Kentucky's loss to Louisville dropped the Wildcats to 1-6 on the season. As bad as it looks on paper, the players know they are better than what their record says. After all, they're only two made Olivier Sarr shots away from being 3-4. "Coach (Calipari) always says we have buzzard luck and I feel like that's the definition of buzzard's luck," said sophomore Jacob Toppin. "The ball was in the basket and it came out. We can't do nothing about that. That was a great shot. He shoots those everyday. He makes 100-plus shots from that spot on the court everyday. He knows to keep shooting and we just gotta live with that." UK's same old struggles were still evident. They scrambled to knock down shots, making 34.5% of their field goals and 29.4% from three, and still turned it over 11 times. Still, Toppin can see and feel this team improving. "Let's look at the positives. We're moving in the right direction. Even though we lost, we saw improvement in the team and individually in everybody. We just gotta keep pushing. Yeah, our backs are on the wall. That just makes us hungrier. We just want to get a win, get that first taste of victory and I think we will be good," Toppin said. "We need to play better and we are starting to play better. We're not going to blame him (Calipari) and our tough schedule on our losses because we could've won games that we played. Our confidence is still high, I think, because we're moving in the right direction. Everyday in practice we gotta get better and keep improving everyday." Even though they might be moving in the right direction, it must start producing results as soon as possible. "This is not about me. This is bigger than me," said Davion Mintz, who hit four three-pointers to lead UK in scoring with 19 points. "We all want to win, all of these guys here. None of us would've imagined this but we just jeep fighting. We've gotta keep fighting. At this point we've kind of thrown away the record in our mind and we just go out there and play basketball." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv2wQLnlf40

Discuss This Article

Comments have moved.

Join the conversation and talk about this article and all things Kentucky Sports in the new KSR Message Board.

KSBoard

2024-04-18