John Clay's Sidelines

More of Rich Brooks after UK’s 34-27 triumph at Georgia, where the Kentucky coach talks about Derrick Locke, LaRod King and others.

More of Kentucky coach Rich Brooks after his team’s 34-27 win at Georgia, the Cats’ first victory in Sanford Stadium since 1977.

Note: That sound you hear is the players celebrating in the Kentucky locker room.

I’m in the Peach State of Georgia for the football game tonight, so no basketball liveblog. But I will be liveblogging Cats-Dogs tonight from Sanford Stadium.

Several clips of UK coach John Calipari talking to the media before today’s practice.

There will be four are five clips in all. Click the continue button to see the other clips.

Here Calipari talks about his team’s defense against the 3-pointer.

Continue reading ‘Video: John Calipari before today’s practice’

Here is UK coach John Calipari talking before Friday’s practice about watching the video of Thursday’s win over Sam Houston.

Put together an Excel file of UK individual basketball stats through the first three games.

Here’s the link, using Google docs.

Or you can see the jpeg view by clicking to expand the thumbnail chart to the right. Keep clicking on it until it increases to full size.

Please feel free to point out any and all errors.

(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

John Calipari exclaimed last night that this may be his worst defensive team since 1988.

My statistical library doesn’t go back that far, but I do have the stats for his nine years at the helm at Memphis, where the Tigers were generally very good defensively. In fact, last year stats guru Ken Pomeory ranked Memphis best in the country in defensive efficiency.

Opponents managed to shoot better than 40 percent just three of Cal’s nine years there. And the 3-point percentage by opponents was normally around the 30-32 percent mark, which is certainly respectable.

Through three games, a very small sample, this year, opponents are shooting 42 percent from three-point range and averaging a mind-blowing 12.33 triples per game.

Continue reading ‘John Calipari’s defense at Memphis vs. this year’

What is it about Rupp Arena? The rims? The background? The atmosphere?

Go back over the past eight years and look up the top 10 three-point shooting performances by a Kentucky opponent. Eight of the 10 happened at Rupp, including Sam Houston State’s prolific 18-of-38 super-showing from three-point land last night. And that came on the heels of Miami of Ohio’s blistering 15-of-26 showing on Monday night. So in two games, the Cats have allowed 33 made three-pointers in 64 attempts, a statistic that has led to John Calipari fearing that his head just might leave his body.

Anyway, eight of the top performances happened by opponents at Rupp. One happened in last year’s season finale when Notre Dame hit 12 threes on the way to beating Kentucky in the NIT. (Billy Gillispie’s final game as the Kentucky coach, it turned out.) And one happened in Maui. That was the Gonzaga game when the Zags hit 12 of 27.

Here’s the chart (because you knew it was coming):

Here is UK freshman guard Eric Bledsoe talking about hitting five three-pointers, and how tough it is to play defense in college.