Kentucky Cruises Past Team Toronto in Last Game of Exhibition Trip

Kentucky spent the middle two games dominating quality international professional teams, stoking the flames of preseason hype in the process. In the finale against Team Toronto, the Wildcats got a reminder of the importance of playing with an edge.

Shots weren’t falling, the play was sloppy in the early going and UK had a slim 20-15 lead late in the first half. Then Kentucky rediscovered that edge.

“What I liked is we started the game and couldn’t make a shot and they come back and get it to four and there’s some adversity,” John Calipari said. “You need adversity. It’s the only way you can really learn.”

The Cats might not have had their legs playing their fourth game in five days, but they used a 19-4 run over the final 4:14 before halftime to build a big lead they would never relinquish. With a 93-60 victory, UK completed a four-game sweep through the Big Blue Bahamas Tour with an average margin of victory of 32 points.

“I told the guys I’m not intoxicated by this,” Coach Cal said. “I just told them, I’m not. At the end of the day, we should be a monster defensive team, we should be a great rebounding team, we should be a team that can fly up and down the court and put pressure on you both sides of the ball, and we should be a team that shares. Because we got a lot of guys that are skilled enough to play that way.”