ESPN wonders if John Calipari will be able to implement a “tweak” that will help this season’s Kentucky team get to the Final Four.
C.L. Brown of ESPN believes the change that Kentucky needs is a commitment to defense.
Here’s an excerpt:
Will John Calipari employ a “tweak,” as he did in 2014, to get Kentucky ready for the tournament and perhaps a run to the Final Four?
Having lost three of its past six games, Kentucky is in need of a good tweak.
You remember “The Tweak” … right?
The Wildcats were on a similar slide to close the 2013-14 regular season, losing three of their last four regular-season games.
Coach John Calipari said his ”tweak” before the NCAA tournament helped the Cats reach the title game as a No. 8 seed (they lost to UConn). He later revealed that the mystery tweak was simplifying the game for Andrew Harrison by having him focus more on distributing than scoring.
No question, these Cats have the talent to be make a deep tournament run this season, led by arguably the best backcourt in Calipari’s tenure: Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox. But in the Cats’ recent losses, they appeared to have regressed in several areas.
On his radio show last week, Calipari talked about the need for a reboot to get things right. And it looked as if the team received his message in building a 25-point lead in its win over LSU. That is, until the Wildcats allowed the Tigers to score 58 second-half points and pull to within six in the closing seconds.
Immediately after the game, Calipari told the ESPN broadcast audience that if the NCAA allowed it, he would have held the Cats over for practice that night. He vowed a three-hour session that may end with players puking, “and if anybody wants to quit they can quit, because this has got to stop at some point.”
The Cats had practice the next day. Nobody has quit.
The change that needs to be made is a commitment to defense. The Cats have been more focused on trying to outscore teams than on trying to stop them. Holding Alabama to 58 points in the Wildcats’ win Saturday was a good start.
UK ranks near the bottom of the SEC in field goal percentage defense and scoring defense.
“The best thing to happen to us is LSU. … If we had won by 30, possibly we would have looked at it and said, OK, now we’re right. We’ve got this right.’ And by them coming back on us, it showed me … this is not going to work this way,” Calipari said.
Far more complex than a tweak could be, Calipari said the Cats’ dedication to defense won’t mean changes happen overnight, but he believes they will happen in time for the postseason, adding: “Thank goodness we’ve got a month to get this right.” — C.L. Brown
