National Takes on Kentucky after the Champions Classic
Kentucky vs. Kansas in the Champions Classic is the talk of the college basketball world this morning. The Cats lost to the Jayhawks 89-84, but Kentucky’s return to form, especially in the first half, has the talking heads buzzing. Here’s a roundup of their reactions.
ESPN’s Jeff Borzello
Even though the Wildcats lost, why should we still be excited about them this season?
For the first 25 minutes, they were a revelation. They were playing with incredible pace, spreading the floor with multiple shot-makers and forcing Kansas to defend in space. Rob Dillingham was making shots. Antonio Reeves was making shots. Adou Thiero was playing with energy. Kansas simply couldn’t keep up.
The Jayhawks did begin to assert their interior dominance and keep Kentucky out of transition in order to come back and eventually win, but the big takeaway is that John Calipari’s team went toe-to-toe with the No. 1 team in the country and nearly won. And this despite Justin Edwards and D.J. Wagner — the highest-ranked freshmen on the Wildcats and their highest-ranked NBA prospects — shooting a combined 1-for-18 and scoring five points.
One more thing to remember: Kentucky is still short-handed. Aaron Bradshaw, a top-10 recruit, and returning big man Ugonna Onyenso are out after offseason foot injuries, and highly touted Croatian center Zvonimir Ivisic hasn’t been cleared to play yet. Hunter Dickinson probably wouldn’t had gotten 27 and 21 if those three were able to suit up on Tuesday. I came out of this with plenty of optimism for Kentucky’s season.
Mike DeCourcy
If these performances were to be issued a grade on the letter system, the Wildcats’ simply would be assigned an “incomplete”. We can’t know what the Wildcats will be in four months without seeing what sort of competitive shape Bradshaw and Onyenso will be in, how much ground they’ll need to cover and how much time they’ll have to do it.
The team as it is composed can beat anyone on a good day, and most anyone on a half-good one. Freshman guard D.J. Wagner shot 1-of-12 from the field in 25 minutes against KU. Wing Justin Edwards was 0-for-6. You can discuss among yourselves which of those figures is poorer. It may be worse that the guards only got big man Tre Mitchell four shots, of which he made half.
Even though they emphasized the running game and, as Calipari likes to say, “playing random”, they were haphazard enough to only tie KU in fastbreak points.
And with all of that, Kentucky built a 14-point lead in the second half. They made poor decisions in the final four minutes, and one of those probably was reinserting freshman point guard Rob Dillingham, who’d enjoyed a brilliant first half but sat through most of the second because of foul trouble. Classmate Reed Sheppard had helped the team advance to a six-point lead at the final media timeout, but he was replaced, and Dillingham surrendered consecutive 3-pointers to Harris and missed his own jumpshot with 2:15 left. The score was tied at that point, and Kentucky scored only one more point.
Jon Rothstein
Kentucky looked the part – Six of the eight players that played for the Wildcats against Kansas were in their first-ever showcase game in a Kentucky uniform. The final margin of defeat was only five points and that happened with the Wildcats’ two most highly touted freshmen — D.J. Wagner and Justin Edwards — combining to shoot just 1-18 from the field. There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about John Calipari’s team, especially on the perimeter. Wagner, Edwards, Robert Dillingham (18 points), Reed Sheppard (13 points), and Antonio Reeves (24 points) have the requisites to give Calipari his best crop of guards since he had Ashton Hagans, Immanuel Quickley, and Tyrese Maxey during the 2019-20 season.
Matt Norlander
It’s way too early to say whether this team is going to be top 10-good. What’s obvious is that it’s going to be entertaining and capable of playing a much more modern style of basketball. The Cats were more deliberate in eliminating mid-range 2-pointers, which has been a notorious trait of Kentucky ball under Cal as of late.
There’s no shame in losing to Kansas because Kentucky wasn’t expected to beat Kansas. For some, UK was on the docket to potentially get run out of the gym, as has been the case against some highly ranked competition in recent years. Not this time.
Here’s a blue blood program finding a new way with some traits of some of Calipari’s best teams. Lottery-type talent bringing pizzazz and promise to the Bluegrass State. To be clear, the wins are going to need to pile up. Calipari’s never had a college season with more pressure on him than this one. Three games in, it looks like he’s got a group capable of handling some of that pressure by playing as though it’s not in the air.
The losses are never tolerable, but the signals are encouraging. What we saw from Calipari and Co. on Tuesday was progress. It’s a new look, it’s a fun team, it’s a group with potential to beat just about anyone.
Eamonn Brennan
For most of the past half-decade, Kentucky has occasionally been good but almost never been fun. The late-tenure John Calipari teams have been physical, deliberate, methodical to the point of plodding. They have struggled with turnovers. They haven’t shot the ball well, and their midrange-heavy shot diet has long since become outdated. Once built on brilliant young NBA talents, Kentucky’s recent teams have been older and less dynamic. Even their greatest player of this period — national player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe, a truly generational rebounding force — wasn’t exactly all that much fun to watch. He bent the game to his will, but super strength is always one of the least compelling superpowers.
On Tuesday night, at the Champions Classic, after years of identity drift and broadening fan discontent — yes, even in defeat, 89-84, for a program that doesn’t countenance moral victories — Kentucky finally felt like Kentucky is supposed to feel. Kentucky felt back.
Trilly Donovan
J. Kyle Mann and Tate Frazier
Tate Frazier: “I think that’s the big story here, Kentucky, they looked fun again. This looks like a vintage Calipari team.”
J. Kyle Mann: “We talked about how I said I think this is going to be the fastest team that Cal’s had since probably 2017. They might be cumulatively faster. They were very, very quick. When they were playing aggressively and trying to pressure them and get deflections and just get out there and run — we saw Dillingham have that insane stretch there in the first half where he just went wild.”
Frazier: “It was all the encouraging signs for Kentucky fans and this was a team, there was some conversation about what do they look like, what is their identity. I think they have a really good identity and if you get your two stars, who are supposed to by your stars, DJ Wagner and Justin Edwards to play a par game, you have a real threat as a team.”
(Kentucky/Kansas discussion starts around the 1:45 mark)
Got thoughts? Continue the conversation on KSBoard, the KSR Message Board. New members can try 1 month for $1.
Discuss This Article
Comments have moved.
Join the conversation and talk about this article and all things Kentucky Sports in the new KSR Message Board.
KSBoard