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The Kentucky Wildcats faced off with Notre Dame on Saturday but were unable to get back on the winning track.
However, the Cats found themselves down by 24-points before mounting an incredible second half performance.
These young Cats started fighting and slowing climbing their way back into the game as the lead was down to 10 with 9:22 to play.
Kentucky would cut the lead to 53-49 before Notre Damn pushed it back to 60-50 at the under 4 media timeout.
The Cats refused to quit and went on yet another run and had the ball down 64-63 with 11 seconds to play.
Unfortunately, Olivier Sarr missed the potential game-winning jumper that would have secured an incredible 24-point comeback for Kentucky.
Despite the loss, the second half performance was very encouraging and will hopefully be the turning point in the season after a 1-4 start.
After the game, John Calipari spoke with the media and expressed that this team now has hope moving forward.
“There’s hope now. If that’s how we were playing in those 20 minutes, there’s hope. Now we just got to do it for forty (minutes).”
Another change that coach Cal made for this game was starting Davion Mintz over Devin Askew, but it wasn’t at the point guard position. Instead, it was Terrence Clarke running the point.
It appears that Clarke at the point will be a permanent change moving forward as coach Cal told the media he liked what he saw from Clarke running the show.
“I like Terrence at point guard. I like having his hands on the ball.”
Throughout the postgame press conference coach Cal talked about Terrence being the point guard multiple times and then ended the Zoom conference with one more nod to it.
“How we’re going to play is going to develop now that Terrence is playing point.”
It was a tough loss to take and 1-4 is still 1-4 but this was an encouraging second half performance for Kentucky and hopefully they are able to build on this and turn this season around.
Kentucky will be in action again next Saturday when they take on the UCLA Bruins in Cleveland. That game will tipoff at 2:00 pm EST and will air on CBS.