John Calipari says 50/50 balls cost Kentucky vs. LSU

One minute into the second half, it looked like Kentucky was well on its way to its second-straight win, leading LSU by 15 points thanks to back-to-back threes by Justin Edwards and Antonio Reeves. Unfortunately, the game did not end there.

Over the next three minutes, LSU whittled Kentucky’s 15-point lead to two. At the 13-minute mark, the game was tied. Despite some late-game heroics by Rob Dillingham, the Cats fell to the LSU Tigers 75-74 on a buzzer-beater by Tyrell Ward. Instead of taking another step in the right direction following a huge win over Auburn, Kentucky took two steps back with a performance that resurrects fears about its boom-or-bust potential in March.

John Calipari didn’t spend long discussing the game with reporters, citing the need to get back to Lexington to prepare for Kentucky’s game vs. Alabama on Saturday afternoon. He said one thing was to blame for his team’s performance.

“50/50 balls cost us the game. It’s all we talk about, 50/50 balls. Not only the last play, the play before that, up 13 [points], we have it, they jerk it from us, kick it out and make a three, make another three, it’s anyone’s ball game. Matter of fact, we may have been up 15. You can’t win — don’t tell me about your offense. If you’re not going to come up with 50/50 balls, you can’t win.”

The most glaring example of this came just before the final play of the game when Adou Thiero blocked Jordan Wright’s shot, but Wright was able to tap the ball back out to Tyrell Ward for the game-winner. Had a Kentucky player grabbed that ball instead, it would have been Rob Dillingham’s fantastic shot 13 seconds prior we’d all be talking about right now. Calipari said he wants to review the tape to see what happened.

“Adou blocks it. I’ve got to watch the tape and say, who did not grab that ball? The winning ball. Who didn’t grab it and why? Why not dive on the floor and just tie it up and we win the game?”

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Not helping matters was the fact that Kentucky’s defense, which held LSU to just 27 points on 39% shooting in the first half, allowed 48 points on 48.5% shooting in the second. The Tigers also won the rebounding battle 38-30.

“Again, there’s game slippage and that’s what happens with young teams,” Calipari said of the second-half defensive woes. “We do have the youngest team in the country. That stuff happens and it seems to happen at the wrong time, but I thought we did everything we needed to.”

Down one with 20 seconds to play, Calipari called a timeout. Just seven seconds later, Dillingham hit the jumper to put the Cats up by one with 13 seconds to go. Calipari stands by his decision to score quickly instead of hanging on to the ball.

“You may say, why did you shoot it so quick? Because we have a lot of people coaching, and that’s fine. Because if you miss, you want to offensive rebound. Tie game, you wait. A one-point game, you don’t and then you hope your defense, you come up with a loose ball, and the stuff we did. I thought we did good except we didn’t grab the ball.”

With the loss, Kentucky remains tied with Florida in the SEC standings at 8-5, three games behind Alabama. If the Cats can knock off the Crimson Tide in Rupp on Saturday, the double-bye at the SEC Tournament remains in play. To do that, they better grab the ball.

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