John Calipari knows he has a good team. (Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports.)
John Calipari felt the need to apologize to Kentucky Wildcats’ players, assistant coaches, fans and boosters after his ejection at South Carolina only 2:26 into Saturday’s surprising 89-62 blasting of the 21-4 Gamecocks in Columbia. There was simply no need. Calipari obviously wouldn’t admit it, but he totally took advantage of the right situation at the right time and may have turned the entire season around for the Wildcats at that point.
Kentucky has struggled on the road in league play. The Wildcats have dropped games at Tennessee, Auburn and LSU, as well as Kansas in the Big12/SEC Challenge. Calipari knew that a 100 percent improved South Carolina team, coached by Frank Martin, was going to be a major challenge for the Wildcats as they would seem to not be able to match the physicality of the Gamecocks.
This is where Calipari took advantage of the situation. According to sources, he has had a running back-and-forth “feud” with referee Doug Sirmons all season. Calipari, according to Martin, was edgy during the pre-game handshake and not his jovial self. At that elusive 17:34 mark of the first half with Carolina dictating tempo although the Wildcats had a 5-2 lead, the volcano erupted.
After a Gamecocks turnover, Calipari ran to nearly half court and spewed hot molten lava toward Sirmons, who gladly rushed across the court and slapped Calipari with first technical foul. Calipari did not hit the boiling point. He continued screaming at Sirmons, as players and assistant coaches came to try to keep him from the ejection. Once Sirmons saw no stop in Cal, he immediately and without warning threw the second technical foul his way and ejected Calipari.
Mission accomplished. Sirmons allowed Calipari to use him for his own purpose as the Kentucky coach lost the battle, but won the war. He found the electric charge in this team that he had been looking for all season.
There was absolutely no stopping the Wildcats at that point. They banded the offense together behind point guard Tyler Ulis, while associate head coach Kenny Payne took care of the defensive strategy. The Gamecocks became tight instead of the loose, aggressive team that they had been all season and couldn’t stop the Big Blue juggernaut at least on this Saturday afternoon.
“It was a shock, you know I have never seen anything like that,” said Ulis, who scored 27 points and dished 12 assists, “We all just responded and we just tried to take it over as a team and do it for coach. When you see your coach get tossed that early, you know he is fighting for you, so we have to go fight for him.”
The Wildcats experienced freedom with 12 points off the fast break, dominated the paint to the tune of 34-20, and scored 22 points off of 16 South Carolina turnovers. Ulis made no doubt in saying that this was “definitely” the best game that Kentucky has played to date.
“Seeing Coach fight for you changes your whole mentality,” said big-man Marcus Lee, who garnered 11 points and 13 boards in 13 minutes, “When you see him with all that energy, you get the energy and say, ‘all right, we got this.’ We had the energy for it. At halftime, we said we can’t let this happen again; we have to push for it.”
The free flow allowed Kentucky to make 11 three-point field goals, as Jamal Murray led with four in his 26-point assault. That number totaled 33 treys for the Wildcats in the last three games as their three-point prowess seems to all of a sudden be at a season-high. The Sportscenter highlight came early in the second half as Ulis took off with a Gamecocks turnover and threw the ball off the glass for an assist. Lee slammed it and gave the Wildcats a 49-29 lead as their advantage ballooned to as many as 32 and never below 24.
“One of the telling things about this game is what Coach Cal has been teaching on offense,” said Payne, “I never got in the way. I didn’t have to. Between Cal and Tyler Ulis, they are on the same page. Tyler Ulis ran the offense; I may have interjected something. I wanted us to play defense and rebound and share the ball.”
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Twitter: @KennyThaBaller @CollHoopsWatch
