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John Calipari talks LSU loss, not competing, offensive woes and more

Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

The Kentucky Wildcats are now 11-3 this season after a rough loss in Baton Rouge Tuesday night to LSU.

It was another game away from Rupp Arena in which the Cats were sluggish to open the game and got behind big before spending the entire second half trying to rally. Though they got the score within five, the Tigers used a late run to score an 85-67 win, giving UK a third loss to an unranked team this season.

John Calipari was in a frustrated mood following the loss, but isn't getting too down after a conference road loss in the first week of January.

On the game:
"Great game by LSU, their players, the coaching staff. What a great environment. We weren't up for the challenge. We weren't ready to compete at the level they were competing at, especially with our inside people. We didn't get a lot from anybody except a lot of fouls. But give credit to LSU. They played well."

On getting little production from Alex Poythress and Marcus Lee:
"I don't know. You'll have to ask them. It's just - They didn't compete like the way they needed to, I know that."

On rebounding from this loss:
"We weren't very good this game. That's the great thing about college basketball. You try to get better every week, you take a step back and learn. We'll watch the tape and figure out what we have to do to get better."

On other Tigers besides Ben Simmons beating them:
"No, those other guys are good. I said that prior to the game. I said it's not - If you're spending all your time worrying about him, you're forgetting about (Keith) Hornsby, who made big 3s against us. You're missing the inside people. (Craig ) Victor making his plays. The guards doing their thing. Johnny (Jones) has a good team and he has them playing well."

On the offense being disorganized:
"They were physical and we did not set good screens. We ended up having to play a lot on the perimeter. We started the second half and said we're throwing it in the post, don't care what happens. Obviously, that didn't work. But we'll go back to the drawing board and figure it out. We can't afford to have two or three guys not playing well.

"Like, give you donuts. We're not that good. It forces other guys to try and do too much, and then when the game gets close like four or five points, they're trying to do too much and they're not making winning plays. They're just trying to make plays, and that's kind of what happened here."