STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Fifth-ranked Kentucky nearly blew an 18-point second-half lead before holding on to defeat Mississippi State 88-81 on Tuesday night.
The Wildcats (16-2, 6-0 Southeastern Conference) earned their 11th consecutive victory over the Bulldogs (12-5, 3-2).
"We go into the AAU mode," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "When you're playing all freshmen and sophomores, there's a point in the game that they just think it's like, 'OK, watch this.' You're never going to be that team if that's what your mindset is."
Calipari calls it a lack of discipline. The Wildcats committed 16 turnovers and permitted Mississippi State to shoot 54.2 percent.
Related
"I told them at halftime: 'I'm taking you out.' And I did," Calipari said. "I told the whole team. We're still leaving timeouts and guys are doing exactly the opposite of what I say. 'We're not setting a moving screen this time. So I don't care if you even screen the guy. Do not ...' And the guy set a moving screen. We're up 16, ready to go to ...
"'What did you just do?' That's who we are right now. I thought we were a month away; we may be two months away."
Another key factor was that officials called 52 fouls, 24 against Kentucky. Three Bulldogs and one Wildcat fouled out. Kentucky has been whistled for 144 fouls in the past three games.
"If they're going to call 144, just make sure they're on both (teams). Don't just make them on our team. Call them on everybody," Calipari said. "If you're calling hand checks, call them all. If not, let them all go. Honestly, I don't care what they call. Just, if you make a call, then you better make that same call for my team, and that'll be my beef. If I'm upset, it's based on that."
Calipari's advice?
"If you know they're calling it this way, then adjust," the coach said. "Your team needs to be smart enough."
A Hall of Fame coach knows that, but it can be a tough lesson for freshmen.
"Tell them don't foul. How about that one?" Calipari said. "Which, if you listen to me the whole game, I'm yelling, 'Don't foul. Don't foul, don't foul, give them space, don't foul.'"
Fox said of all the foul calls, "Of course it's difficult because the game keeps stopping, but you just gotta fight through it. They had to fight through it, too. Both of us had foul trouble."
De'Aaron Fox paced the Wildcats with 21 points, and he added five assists and five rebounds. Malik Monk scored 14, Wenyen Gabriel recorded 13 points and eight rebounds, and Isaiah Briscoe scored 12.
Kentucky shot 50.8 percent from the field, making more than half its shots for the sixth straight game.
Mississippi State got 25 points and seven rebounds from Lamar Peters. Quinndary Weatherspoon scored 15 and Mario Kegler had 13 points and eight rebounds for the Bulldogs, who saw their three-game winning streak end.
The Wildcats led 46-34 at halftime and stretched their lead to 62-44 on Isaac Humphries' bucket with 12:59 remaining. Weatherspoon's basket with 8:56 to play cut the deficit to 66-62, and his free throw 1:07 later made it 69-66.
"It showed that we have a lot of fight," Kegler, speaking to the Clarion-Ledger, said of the comeback. "I don't think anyone on this team is scared of any team, or no one."
Peters told the Clarion-Ledger, "We kept fighting. We just didn't want to go out bad in front of the crowd, all the people that came out to watch."
Kentucky took an 84-76 lead on Fox's three-point play with 56 seconds to go, and the Wildcats went 4 for 6 from the free-throw line in the final 47 seconds to seal the victory.
NOTES: The Wildcats are 203-3 under coach John Calipari when taking a 10-point lead at any point of a game. ... Kentucky leads the series 94-20 and has won five straight at Mississippi State by an average of 10 points. ... The Wildcats' streak of shooting 50 percent six games in a row is their longest since the 1991-92 season and the longest in the SEC since 1983-84. ... The Bulldogs are the second-least experienced team among the 351 Division I clubs, with Kentucky fifth, according to KenPom.com.
