John Calipari believes Utah loss is the medicine UK needs

The Kentucky Wildcats suffered an embarrassing loss last night at the hands of Utah. To make matters worse, Utah was not a veteran team. In fact, they were younger than the Wildcats, and, with all do respect, significantly less talented.

But, the Utes played harder for 35 minutes and Kentucky dug themselves into too deep of a hole to climb out of. And thus, Kentucky drops their second game of the season with Ohio State and Louisville looming on the horizon.

However, John Calipari seems to suggest that this loss may help more than a win would have.

“A lot of times, you win a game like this, it hurts you more than it helps you. A lot of times you have to take it to understand that this is not going to work this way, and it’s not going to work for individuals either, said Calipari.

The Cats did not look like they had any fight in them for about 35 minutes of the game, taking bod shots, playing bad defense and mental lapses on the defensive side of the ball. This is still a learning process for this team, but Calipari is still trying to teach his team.

As for three-point shooting? Cal spoke on that as well.

“We’ve had these issues. This is who we are sometimes,” he said. “There are games when we shoot the three good, and when we don’t, we’re 2/17. We need to make six of seven threes a game. But you can’t go 1/12, 2/15. We’ve had guys miss nine in a row who are good shooters.”

The three ball has been a very bad issue for Kentucky this season, as they cannot shoot, and they don’t have a go-to scorer down low like last season with PJ Washington and Reid Travis, so relying on three to open up the paint is even more important. With Kentucky not making three’s, the easy way to beat them is to load the paint and play zone, much like Utah did last night, and every team going forward will do as well.