Wright State at Kentucky

The Cats next opponent is Wright State, a team he says is shooting 40 percent from behind the arc and play a 2-3 zone. The Wildcats are 4-1-1 ATS in their last 6 home games vs. a team with a losing road record and 3-1-2 ATS in their last 6 games vs. a team with a losing S.U. record.

This team, which already has stamped itself among a lot of Kentucky fans as more fun to watch than last year’s powerhouse, looked its age Friday night by playing down to its level of competition.

Elsewhere, Duke guard Grayson Allen was dropping 30 points on Virginia Commonwealth, giving him 84 points in three games not against Kentucky.

But as Calipari quickly noted, things could have been better.

Most teams on the United Kingdom schedule will have to hope the Wildcats try to win by throwing their sneakers on the floor – just going through the motions, which happened at times Friday night. This should be another tune-up game for a young KY Wildcats lineup that has looked strong thus far in the early going. “We took a big step back”. The Wildcats also seemed to struggle with Wright State’s sagging defense. Guys didn’t listen. We were doing certain things, and they just kind of broke it off and did their own thing.

The Wildcats had a few good moments. Skal Labissiere, Marcus Lee, Alex Poythress, Isaac Humphries and Derek Willis should dominate on the boards and will all have a shot at a double-double. And there was the frequent sight of Briscoe harassing dribblers, applying pressure even with his mouth guard dangling out of his mouth.

The Raiders hung with the Wildcats in the second half as they scored 37 points compared to Kentucky’s 39.

“If we lose to Wright State, you people in Kentucky will think I should be fired”, Calipari said after beating Duke.

“Taking that into consideration, Wright State will basically face a loaded United Kingdom frontcourt with two guys all night – Seniors JT Yoho (6’6″) and Michael Karena (6’10”).

At times Rupp didn’t have a lot of energy in the second half.

The second half began with a charge taken by Benzinger who gave the Raiders eight points in the first 10 minutes as they cut the deficit to 12.

Kentucky (3-0) won its first 38 games last season before falling to Wisconsin in the national semifinals.

Wright State (1-3) was whistled for 33 of the 50 fouls in the game, with the Wildcats sinking 26 of 37 free throws. “How well we played against Duke, we have to do that every night, not just against teams like Duke and Kansas”.