Coach Calipari wants some of his players to step up

(THIS is what I want to see Darius doing!)

It seems like less than a month ago we were writing about how good Terrence Jones was and his emergence had been noticed not only by Kentucky fans but nationally by sports writers across the country, but now Coach John Calipari wants his talented forward to step it up a notch.

It isn’t the way Jones is playing the games, he is still getting his numbers at 18 points and 10 rebounds per game, but it’s the way Jones started out the game against Mississippi Valley State. Jones went out with foul trouble at around the nine minute mark and each of his fouls were preventable, meaning it was two bone headed fouls that put Jones out of action for the rest of the half. So in the first half arguably Kentucky’s best player was out with two fouls and four points. Here is what Coach Cal said in his post game press conference on Jones:

“He has those numbers but they aren’t real,” Cal said of Jones scoring 19 points in the win and pulling down nine boards, one short of his season average, “how do you start a game this way? In a league game or a big game you can’t do that. It’s important that we have everybody come and play.”

Yes I understand its MVST but in games like these it’s important to treat them as a big game because how you play and how you approach these games is how you would approach a big game as well. It’s the same as the saying “how you practice is how you play.” Jones was more aggressive in the second half but still couldn’t find his stroke coming out in the second half, he missed his first attempt, got fouled on the second and missed the next two shots before finally going out with trouble at the 16 minute mark.

The good news is Jones has scored in double figures every single game this season but one, and that was the UNC game in which he took a nap before the game, it’s safe to say that Jones will not allowed to take any naps from now on.

Another player that Calipari wants to step up is Darius Miller. Yes this is old news but we can all agree that Miller was a bit more aggressive in the game against MVST because he had a pretty good line of 14 points and give assists, but Calipari said of Miller:

“He’s better than that.”

According to Coach Cal, Miller literally does it all in practice and when he had a visitor in practice one day he was wanting to know who Miller was because he was dunking on people and scoring on everybody, but why isn’t he doing it in a game?

Miller has only scored in double digits in FOUR games this season and one of those games was Portland. I’m starting to believe we will never see Miller come around and he will always be the type of player that will just be a role-player, but one would like to believe the “practice” Miller will show up and just take over a game. The Wildcat’s will NEED Miller to step up in SEC play and there will be times he will have to put this team on his back if Jones goes out with foul trouble.

Calipari wants these guys to step up and with two games before the big Louisville game these guys have the chance to really get aggressive and prove to Cal they are ready for a big battle that big battle and their first test will probably be against Louisville on New Years Eve.

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