John Calipari reveals what went wrong for Kentucky against Arkansas

Kentucky‘s six-game SEC win streak was snapped at home on Tuesday as Arkansas defeated the Wildcats 88-73. Kentucky had a number of areas they struggled in on Tuesday night, which head coach John Calipari highlighted following the game.

“Give Arkansas credit, they were physical, they drove the ball, our rim protection was awful,” Calipari said to open is post-game press conference. “I can’t get guys to body up and do this stuff and they did a great job of bodying up us. They just jumped with two hands, they bodied up, and if you threw it into their arms it was a block. We just gotta do it.”

Arkansas had their way with Kentucky in the paint, scoring at will around the rim. And on the flip side, the Razorbacks’ rim protection was phenomenal, led by Makhel Mitchell‘s monster day on defense with five blocks on the night.

“And that’s why I went with Daimion (Collins) a little bit, thought he was good again today. You could see Sahvir (Wheeler), we had 15 turns, we’d been averaging 10, 11 turns but playing Cason (Wallace) as much as we did we struggle with it,” Calipari said.

The Wildcats were without point guard Sahvir Wheeler on Tuesday, who missed the game with an ankle injury. His presence was surely missed, as he leads the team and the SEC in assists and has only turned the ball over once in Kentucky’s last three games in 74 minutes of play.

Kentucky lost the turnover and assist battle to Arkansas, but there aren’t many teams in the country that would have stood a chance versus the Razorbacks in the second half the way they were playing.

“But they shot 72% in the second half, come on, you’re not gonna win a game if they’re shooting 72%,” Calipari admitted. “We tried some zone, we did some different things, we switched, they got down hill and no one in there wanted to body up, which is what they did to us.”

Arkansas ended the night shooting an impressive 62.7% from the field and 44.4% from three-point range, putting their foot on the gas in the second half after leading by just one point at the break.

The good news for Kentucky is it appears that Wallace is starting to get into a nice offensive rhythm, as he had his second straight 20-plus point game of his freshman campaign and his sixth straight game scoring in double figures. Additionally, the Wildcats hit the road and face Georgia in their next game, who they’ve already beaten this season and are 1-6 in their last seven matchups.

“But we’ll learn, they were way better than us today. We just gotta figure it out and we got a day off and we’ll come back and go,” Calipari concluded.