Just think of all the things you can do come March.
Rearrange your sock drawer. Clean out your basement. Catch up on your reading. Sign up for that anger management class you may need after this stressful season. You know, all those things you need to do but normally wouldn’t do because you’d be too busy watching basketball.
That is if you haven’t already started doing those things instead of watching basketball.
Kentucky lost another game Tuesday night. Alabama 70, Kentucky 59. That’s 10 UK losses in 15 UK games, a ratio that puts the Wildcats’ chances of making the NCAA Tournament somewhere this side of life support. Defeat No. 10 shared many characteristics with the previous nine. Too many turnovers. Too many missed shots. The continuing inability to finish out a close game at crunch time.
“Our record is hard to look at,” senior center Olivier Sarr admitted afterward.
This season, the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball knows how the other half lives.
To be sure, Alabama is the best team in the SEC this season. The ninth-ranked Tide improved to 9-0 in conference play. Nate Oats should be atop the leaderboard for national Coach of the Year. Bama may have the Most Valuable Player in the entire league in Herb Jones. Overall, the Crimson Tide is experienced, tough and oozing with confidence in the unique way it plays the game.
Thing was, for most of the night, Kentucky took the Tide out of its game. Alabama loves to run. Kentucky slowed the pace. Alabama loves to shoot three-pointers. Kentucky limited the Tide to just 20 attempts from beyond the arc, only six of which actually passed through the net. Bottom line, the Tide was there for the taking.
But Kentucky couldn’t take it. Ahead 51-49 with 7:27 remaining, the Cats scored just three points — a Davion Mintz three-pointer at the 4:27 mark — over the next approximately seven minutes. By the time Dontaie Allen hit a three-pointer with 39 seconds remaining, Alabama led 62-57. Kentucky was forced to foul. And Alabama made 10 straight free throws over the final 96 seconds.
So on a night when the Cats played exemplary defense — a team trademark most of this season — they were again let down by their lack of execution on offense. Tuesday marked the 11th time in 15 games UK has failed to score more than 65 points in regulation. That won’t win many games, especially with teams using the three-point shot to a greater degree.
Afterward, UK Coach John Calipari blamed the defeat on what he blames most defeats: lack of toughness. Not that he was wrong. There were two or three instances down the stretch where Alabama claimed loose balls or all but ripped the ball out of the hands of a Wildcat. Maturity has much to do with that. But there’s a skill factor, as well. And, yes, coaching.
Where does Kentucky go from here? In the short term, a return to Rupp Arena on Saturday to face Texas in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. The Longhorns may or may not be without their coach, Shaka Smart, who not only shed his signature shaved head look this season, but tested positive for COVID-19 this week. With Smart quarantining at home, the Longhorns lost 80-79 to a surging Oklahoma on Tuesday.
The bad news: Texas is ranked No. 5 in the AP Top 25. The good news: Texas is ranked No. 5 in the AP Top 25. Calipari insisted Tuesday it is too early to say winning the SEC Tournament March 10-14 in Nashville is UK’s only avenue to March Madness. He pointed to a substantial number of ranked teams remaining on the schedule. (Texas is the second of four consecutive games against ranked foes.) He submitted the hopeful possibility that the expected return of freshman guard Terrence Clarke from an ankle injury could change the dynamic of the team.
That could be. We’ll see. As we’ve said before, however, the clock is ticking. And what we’ve seen so far leads us to believe that Kentucky fans will have time on their hands come March.
