John Calipari: Kentucky is "ahead offensively" at this stage in preseason

If John Calipari lives by one rule in the game of basketball, it’s that you won’t play for him if you won’t commit to defense. Calipari-led Kentucky teams have consistently been defensive-minded groups, and the head coach didn’t mince words during the program’s Media Day on Tuesday when the topic came up.

“We just played that scrimmage. I watched the tape. We stink defensively,” Calipari said. “What do you think we did yesterday the whole practice? Wow. What do you think we’re doing today and tomorrow? Defense. And I told ’em, and I told some individuals, ‘Look, if you want to play, if you think you’re going to play, you’re not playing. You won’t play.'”

The scrimmage Calipari referenced was the annual Blue-White preseason game this past Saturday, which was held in Pikeville, KY in order to (quite successfully) raise money for flood relief in eastern KY. The White Team came away with a 70-67 win over the Blue Team in the 30-minute exhibition. Both teams shot a combined 48.6 percent from the field (53-109) while over half of both teams’ makes were assisted on.

All five players for the White Team scored in double-figures while Antonio Reeves and Adou Theiro added 38 total points for the Blue Team. Even without Oscar Tshiebwe, Sahvir Wheeler, and Lance Ware on the floor due to minor injuries, the Wildcats were still finding offensive production across the board.

Both sides were playing hard, but there was definitely more offense than defense on display — which is fine for a fund-raising, preseason scrimmage. Calipari sure might not have liked that aspect of it, but even he couldn’t help but admit the offense has shown several flashes of greatness throughout the offseason. A big reason why is the return of five key players from last season’s roster (six if you include CJ Frederick) and the addition of a transfer portal veteran in Reeves.

“So, the way I coach when I have veteran teams it’s, ‘Here’s the drill, watch them, now go and do it.’ You don’t have to break the whole thing down,” Calipari said. “You’re watching. We are ahead offensively and we’re behind defensively, and we, you saw it in that game. I mean, we played together, low turnovers. We did it. We’re ahead offensively.”

You could see Kentucky’s growing offensive skills over the summer down in the Bahamas. UK shot a blistering 54.8 percent from the field across the four preseason outings, including a 38.1 percent mark from distance. UK cracked 100 points in three of the four outings, scoring 98 in the fourth. The competition wasn’t exactly SEC caliber, but a couple of the opponents featured legitimate talent and presented some challenges early on.

Kentucky still has all the makings of an elite defensive machine on that end of the floor, though. The ‘Cats ranked 35th in defensive efficiency in the country last season, per Team Rankings, and bring back arguably the team’s two best defenders in Wheeler and Tshiebwe. There is length at every position with plenty of big bodies on the wing and shot blockers in the paint. Wheeler might be the best end-to-end, on-ball defender in college basketball. Calipari has a track record of getting his defenses locked in sooner rather than later.

Typically with Calipari-coached groups, it’s the offense that takes a while to come along and catch up with the defense. Taking the injuries of the last month into account, perhaps this is simply a matter of not being able to play defense together as a full team. Luckily, there will be plenty of time to build up that synergy. If anything, it’s more encouraging that the offense is already clicking before playing a single regular-season outing.

Kentucky will play two exhibition games on Sunday, Oct. 30 (Missouri Western State) and Thursday, Nov. 3 (Kentucky State) before opening up the 2022-23 slate against Howard on Monday, Nov. 7 inside Rupp Arena.