Kentucky basketball: Wildcats bid season ado after Music City misery

Wildcats lethargic and icy start and finish bites them again

All the first half highlights belonged to Mississippi State and none for Kentucky.

Try as they might shots wouldn’t find their mark for the first half and continued into the second.

With UK trailing 44-30 it matched the largest halftime deficit in an SEC Tournament game in school history. The others were in 2000 against Arkansas (trailed 36-22 at halftime, lost 86-72) – and in 2013 with Vanderbilt (trailed 37-23 at halftime, lost 64-48).

Molinar burned the Kentucky defense time after time and exploited every look the Wildcats presented finishing with 21 points. He also had 17 points the last time these two teams met.

But where Kentucky was exposed the most as it has been far too many times this year was in the paint where the Bulldog bigs in Abdul Ado who averages just 5 points and 6 rebounds had his way down low with 12 points and nine boards. Add Tolu Smith’s double-double of 13 points, 11 rebounds. In all Mississippi State won the boards 46-30.

Calipari led off the post-game conference addressing the whooping on the glass.

"Yeah, just finishing it off at the end, I thought we were going to make a run. The way we started the game was so disappointing. Basically we got punked. I mean, they’re plus-15 rebounds. Are you kidding me? I’ve never seen that. Division I against Division III maybe, but I’ve never seen 15. Are you going to be down 30 rebounds? They’re going to out-rebound you 15 to 20? I never heard of such a thing."

Kentucky trying to play man-to-man was a fiasco as no one could even contain them as the points in the paint went to the Bulldogs 46-30.

While UK missed 11 of its first 13 field-goal attempts the Bulldogs just kept feeding in into the paint with their first 34 points coming in the paint or at the free-throw line.

Even Calipari acknowledged that this team lacks the physical bodies and will to push people around much less off the block. That was also due in part to Isaiah Jackson and Olivier Sarr sitting most of the first half in foul trouble.

Jacob Toppin got the start again but Calari had to take him out due to the game being too physical for him.

Toppin played 7 minutes with no points, Brandon Boston Jr. 23 minutes and no points, Devin Askew 21 minutes and no points, Lance Ware 17 minutes and one point. Jackson only saw 19 minutes of action getting 7 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 blocks before fouling out on the winning basket.

Kentucky finishing with 73 points was on par for the year where they are 8-1 this season when scoring at least 76 points but 1-15 when scoring 75 or fewer. More evidence they desperately need a post presence and shooters.

The trepid finish was deja-vu of games with good spurts only to see all that effort fade away in the closing 240 seconds.

Mintz said Calipari’s plan for the final 4 minutes was to feed the post.

"” We just kind of got a little stagnant, very slow. Just didn’t get good looks at what we wanted. They were coming off of staggers over the top, making shots. I mean, they hit a lot of daggers towards the end. We couldn’t capitalize and answer back, especially when we had the lead towards the last 4 minutes.”"

Unfortunately feed the post didn’t materialize once again settling for long two-pointers and wasted opportunities.