John Calipari: "We've got good players but some guys aren't playing great"

Kentucky has now played 12 games this season, winning eight and losing four. Since last week’s win over Florida A&M, John Calipari and his staff have been tinkering with lineups in practice, sometimes pulling two-a-days. Tonight’s 89-75 loss to Missouri makes it clear there is still a LOT of work to be done.

After giving the Tigers praise and listing his own team’s mistakes, John Calipari said it’s time to go back to the drawing board again to figure out which players he can play and which he can’t.

“We got it to eight or nine,” Cal said of Kentucky’s run in the second half. “And then we go turnover, three, turnover. It’s an 8-0 run. Those aren’t my teams. So, I gotta go back and really figure out — you know, some of its personnel. I think we got good players, but some guys aren’t playing great.”

After leaving the press conference, Calipari expanded on that in a conversation with Tom Leach.

“When a team plays that well, you’ve going to fight back. And we got the game close and then we broke down and turned it over and did some dumb things. I’ve gotta look at some of this personnel. I mean, guys in these games just not performing. And it’s your job to perform with the minutes. You get the minutes, you gotta go do it, so but like I said, we’re — [long pause] different lineups, different stuff we need to do. But we will see.”

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Turnovers, free-throw shooting

There are a lot of ugly numbers from tonight’s loss. Kentucky was 2-12 from the three-point line in the first half, allowing Missouri to build a 12-point lead going into the half. The Cats turned the ball over 14 times and only made 15-24 free throws. Calipari was frustrated by his team turning the ball over at crucial times but seemed at a loss when it comes to what’s happening with his guys at the free throw line.

“I look and some of the stuff wasn’t bad, but 14 turnovers and all of them at critical times. But they’re good. When they shoot the ball like they shot it and again, we missed free throws. And I’m trying everything, from mental to shoot 100 to we’re shooting 1-on-1s if you miss, we run, I’m trying to do a lot of stuff but I don’t want to make it that big an issue but it is when you get the game to where it was. If we had made some free throws, now it may be four or five and it’s a little different feel to it.”

Figuring out how to play with Oscar

A question I keep coming back to is, what does this Kentucky team do well? Even the go-to move of feeding Oscar Tshiebwe in the post doesn’t seem to working as well as it did last season — although Oscar finished with 23 points and 19 rebounds in 40 minutes tonight. John Calipari said teams clamping down on Oscar in the paint could be solved by his shooters making threes, but that’s not happening.

“We’re different because we’ve got Oscar. You can say, well, let’s come down and have everyone on the floor. You have Oscar so you’ve got to play a little different. The issue becomes, if they don’t play a couple of the guys on the floor, now Oscar’s got three guys around him. That’s an issue for us.

“So, if you go like this and then try to pass it to him. That guy’s fighting to get around. He’s fighting to keep them behind. There were opportunities to throw it in and do that, but again, you know, we had like five wide-open shots and didn’t make them. That takes the wind out of your sails, and you don’t have to make them all, but how about for 1-5 or 2-5? So, but we’ll see.”

“Daimion is the next guy that gets his opportunity”

Coming into tonight, Calipari said he was designing lineups with Adou Thiero in mind. Thiero finally got in at the 16:53 mark in the second half and immediately gave the Cats a boost, sparking a 7-0 run. He stayed in the remainder of the game, finishing with five points, three rebounds, and an assist. He was the only Cat to finish in the positive in plus/minus efficiency.

Lance Ware also showed some fight. Both Thiero and Ware drew praise from Calipari in the postgame press conference, and Cal said he’ll look further down the bench moving forward, singling out Daimion Collins. Collins did not play tonight, and hasn’t logged double figure minutes since the win over Michigan on Dec. 4.

“We’ve got to step up to the plate and maybe play less people,” Calipari said. “Daimion is the next guy that gets his opportunity now. Let Daimion get in there and play and do his thing and we’ll see.”