LEXINGTON – When Kentucky played loose in the final years of the John Calipari era, it usually found ways to win games, even when Big Blue Nation was not expecting a victory.
Whether it was coming off a Quad 4 loss to South Carolina and beating No. 5 ranked Tennessee in Knoxville four days later in 2023 with both of its point guards (Cason Wallace and Sahvir Wheeler) hurt or knocking off No. 13 Auburn by last season by holding the Tigers to 13 points when UK had struggled to win any games with a defensive first approach all season.
When Calipari told his teams there was ‘nothing to lose,’ they usually responded with a victory.
That’s how his Arkansas Razorbacks played Saturday at Rupp Arena and in the process handed the No. 12 Wildcats a 89-79 defeat in his first trip back to Lexington as head coach of the rival Razorbacks.
“Coach said to come in here and just play with confidence and have fun,” Arkansas point guard and former Wildcat D.J. Wagner said postgame.
“I told them I’m coaching fearless today,” Calipari added. “I want you to play fearless.”
While Arkansas, which shot 13-for-25 (55.2 percent) from three despite entering the contest with a 32.5 percent three-point shooting percentage, came in and played like it had nothing to lose, Kentucky looked and admitted it was tense.
“It got to us a little bit. Definitely during some points of the game,” UK forward Ansley Almonor said postgame when asked if Kentucky felt tense Saturday. “We know how much it meant to the fans. It just sucks that we were able to get the result that we wanted.”
UK trailed 46-45 at halftime and took a gut punch coming out of the locker room as a 9-2 Arkansas run extended the Razorback lead to 55-47 with 16:39 remaining.
“We’ve been an unbelievable team coming out of halftime. This was really our first war poor coming out of halftime,” UK head coach Mark Pope said. It’s something we talked about his staff just after we met, you are always evaluating energy, where energy sits, and we’re kind of reflecting on what we did at halftime … We came out not operating like we do after halftime.
That is concerning to me. That’s been a staple of us. We come out of halftime and work great, but we were disappointing tonight.”
A dunk by Brandon Garrison cut Arkansas’ lead down to 76-70 with 6:58 remaining, but the Razorbacks would punch back with a 12-3 run that saw Kentucky commit three turnovers.
Overall, UK finished the night committing 14 turnovers, dishing only 14 assists and shoot just 3-for-13 (23.1 percent) from three in the second half after shooting 7-for-10 (70 perent) from deep in the first half.
While bragging rights for Big Blue Nation were lost and a Quad 2 loss is now on the Wildcats’ NCAA Tournament resume, the loss to Arkansas doesn’t have to define Kentucky’s season.
However, it must quickly re-focus and find a way to let the pressure come off their shoulders and do so fast with just 10 regular season games remaining, a message both Calipari offered his former team and Pope delivered to his crew postgame.
“Mark Pope is doing a great job, not a good job, a great job. We kind of got them today. Just move on,” Calipari said. “If anybody takes it more than that, you’re crazy.
“If there’s anything about tonight, it’s just like all kind of complicated, conflicting, upside down, twisted up feelings with everybody in BBN and certainly, our guys have that come out of this game,” Pope said.
“This is not a coronation. This is a journey and we’re going to earn our way through it. There’s going to be some real pain on the way.”
