Minnesota State coach says team -- despite the blowout -- was 'treated like royalty' at Kentucky

Imagine going from a home venue that holds 4,800 people and combines the men’s and women’s basketball programs along with volleyball and wrestling to the mecca of college basketball, a 20,500-seat palace better known as Rupp Arena. That was the reality for Minnesota State, traveling to Lexington to take on the Kentucky Wildcats to close out the exhibition schedule.

If that trek from Mankato, MN — population 46K, for those curious — sounds overwhelming, it’s because it was.

“Man, it was super nerve wracking at first, I mean, we got on the floor and there are thousands of people (in Rupp Arena), which we are not used to at all,” Minnesota State forward Caden Kirkman said after the 98-67 loss. “So, to get into that environment and to get those jitters out, it is good we got that out early.”

The Mavericks fought early, showing off their DII championship experience under head coach Matt Margenthaler, mucking things up in the first quarter of the 40-minute matchup. It was an 18-17 game with 9:31 to go in the first half, the Wildcats racking up more turnovers in that segment (five) than the entire exhibition vs. Kentucky Wesleyan.

Then UK rattled off five 3-pointers to go up 20 before extending it to 40 in the second half, closing it out with a 31-point blowout win.

That part wasn’t necessarily fun, but the experience overall exceeded expectations for Minnesota State. No matter the result, the Mavericks were welcomed with open arms and told to make themselves at home, an appreciated gesture following the 800-mile journey from Mankato.

“I would like to thank Coach (Mark) Pope and staff and everybody here at Rupp Arena– we’ve been treated like royalty,” Margenthaler said. “I mean, this has been an unbelievable place and it’s one thing coming to Kentucky and having the opportunity to play here with our Division II program and these young men get the opportunity, it’s another thing the way we were treated and I can’t say enough about the people here.

“This university has just made it so special for us– we really appreciate that.”

As for the play, that was what it was. Margenthaler thought his team competed to the best of its ability, but Kentucky is Kentucky. Even a really good Division II team doesn’t compare to a really good Division I team — and he believes Kentucky is a really good DI team.

“We’re going against a really, really good, old Kentucky basketball team,” he said. “I love the way Mark makes his guys play and that’s the way we want to play. I just told the guys in the locker room, they’re really shooting the ball, they have shooters– that’s how we recruit. We were watching Kentucky; we have a lot of the same things that Kentucky does – we don’t have the same players though. But, they did a really good job.”

What’s it like preparing for an offense that takes and makes threes from all five positions on the floor with the kind of talent and depth this Kentucky team does? Well, it ain’t easy. That’s why that first segment of the game was so important, because they competed about as well as possible given the circumstances.

All hell broke loose from there, but they needed that early stretch to prove to themselves the championship mindset last year’s squad played with is there with this one, as well.

“Very difficult,” he added. “And honestly, we didn’t talk a lot about Kentucky, we talked about ourselves. Going into the year, I said we were so bad last scrimmage that we needed to better ourselves and to walk out of the locker room feeling like we did something positive — and I thought we did. Obviously, we’re not gonna see a team like Kentucky the rest of the year. I thought our guys settled in.

“Kind of like our championship game last year, we’ll settle in a little bit, and I thought we did, and the last four minutes of the first half killed us and the first four minutes of the second half killed us, and you know, they’re going to go on runs and they scored in bunches, and we knew that, but then again, I love the way they played.” 

They failed the test overall, but passed the one they had for themselves taking on a team they have a ton of respect for and believe in as the real deal. Kentucky got what it wanted while forcing Minnesota State to get away from it wanted.

That’s a recipe for success.

“I talked to my guys, we took too many tough twos and we don’t want to take tough twos. Kentucky and Mark’s got his guys believing in that three-point-shot,” he said. “They took like 36 or something like that, I don’t even know. But, they just continued to bomb ’em and bomb ’em and bomb ’em. You continue to do that and you’re going to make them.

“We’ve got to get away from — we took too many bad twos but I’d rather take all those threes. Percentages were there for it. I’m not a real smart guy, I went to Western Illinois, and I mean, it sure is not Harvard of the Midwest, I’ll tell you that. But, that’s smart basketball.”

It was actually 37 3-point attempts, Coach.