Kentucky's impressive second half makes up for terrible start

It happened again. Another under-manned team came into Rupp Arena and decided that missing 3-pointers wasn’t going to be an option. Miles College hit Kentucky in the teeth from the moment the ball went up on Friday night. The Golden Bears held a 46-39 halftime advantage and went 11-15 from beyond the arc. Panic quickly engulfed the Big Blue Nation.

Miles wasn’t hitting tough shot after tough shot, though. Some were contested, but most were open. Miles hit its first six triples. Kentucky’s three-point defense was simply not good and Miles made the ‘Cats pay. UK actually played a pretty solid offensive first half, hitting over 45 percent of its shots including a 6-11 mark from deep. It was the NBA-level shooting from Miles that masked any positives for Kentucky.

“I didn’t expect them to make this many 3s, especially in a row,” Head coach John Calipari said in the postgame.

But adjustments were made (and Miles finally come down to earth) at the intermission. Miles went just 4-15 from three in the second half–a result of better shot contesting from UK–ultimately losing the game by a tight score of 80-71. Kentucky held the Golden Bears to just 24 second-half points and a 38 percent shooting clip.

“Defensively, in the first half, we were horrible. 100 percent horrible,” Jacob Toppin said after the win. “We talked about it at halftime that it’s about pride and we had to take our pride away and just play defense and that’s what we did in the second half. We were gritty, we played for one another in the second and we didn’t let them get a lot of 3s off in the second half. So that was the main difference.”

On offense, Kentucky performed even better on that end in the final 20 minutes. The ‘Cats shot 53.1 percent in the second half with a 5-8 mark from distance. Led by Sahvir Wheeler’s intensity and a lightning-fast pace in transition, UK cruised until the final couple of minutes before letting off the gas pedal.

In the first exhibition game, interior defense was the topic of conversation. Kentucky fixed that in a week; Miles had just 18 points in the paint on Friday. In exhibition number two, it was 3-point defense, and UK will have a mere three days to correct that before a Madison Square Garden showdown against Duke.

One thing we can confidently say is that Kentucky won’t last long if Duke starts Tuesday night 6-6 from deep.