Adou Thiero on Kentucky's defensive struggles: 'We're gonna get through this'

Kentucky is currently taking on water because of where they are trending defensively. It’s something that they very much need to plug the holes of but is something that Adou Thiero fully expects them to fix as well.

Thiero assessed what he thinks might be wrong with the Wildcats on the defensive end during a media availability after their 103-92 loss to Tennessee on Saturday. He said their toughness comes to mind considering how they’re allowing opponents to score on possessions, especially when they do get an initial stop.

“Probably our physicality,” Thiero said. “We keep getting stops but then the offensive rebounds happen.”

Kentucky allowed 18 offensive rebounds to the Volunteers for 22 second chance points. That’s after giving up 17 offensive boards to Florida, a dozen to South Carolina, and 25 to Texas A&M in their other three losses over their recent 3-4 stretch.

Thiero’s other reasoning was then part of a growing belief that some players just play better against Kentucky. He says it’s difficult to successfully defend how they want when everyone is making shots on them on offense.

“It’s also the fact that, you know, everybody plays us and then they make every shot,” said Thiero. “It’s hard to, you know, keep competing every time.”

There is at least some small basis to this thought based on who has played well against the Wildcats. For the Volunteers, Josiah-Jordan James had a career-high of 26 points after averaging 9.2 while Zakai Zeigler tied a career-high with 26 as well after averaging 10.5. Those came a game after Florida had Walter Clayton Jr. hit a career-best of seven threes while Tyrese Samuel tied a career-high with 22 points. There were similar sentiments about certain performances in some of their others losses like to the Gamecocks, Aggies, and Jayhawks.

However, with that said, it’s no excuse at the end of the day. Opponents make shots against everyone in every game. The rate at which they’re scoring against Kentucky, though, is a trend that should say as much about the Wildcat defense as it should anything else.

Still, even with all that being the case, Thiero believes they’ll get to the other side of it. While they seem to be getting further up creek with fewer paddles to work with, he still thinks that they’ll turn the board around at some point over the second half of conference play.

“We’re going to find our way. We’re going to get through this,” said Thiero.

Reed Sheppard: ‘I’m not worried one bit’

It’s safe to say that morale is currently low around Lexington.

Even so, Reed Sheppard knows that they’re capable of sorting out their recent skid sorted out. He spoke about any senses of urgency from him and his teammates following their latest loss and the freshman’s response was one of confidence in regards to how he’s feeling about the team moving forward.

“We’ll be okay,” said Sheppard. “I’m not worried one bit.”

“The type of guys that we have on this team? We’re fine,” said Sheppard. “We’re going to keep getting better, we’re going to keep learning from it. These are definitely going to be learning experiences.”

Sheppard says there’s still plenty of belief from him and in their locker room. That starts with getting back to work and learning with two more games coming up this week.

“We’ll go in tomorrow, we’ll watch film. We’ll learn from it,” said Sheppard. “Then we’ll go and just keep taking it day by day and game by game.”