UK's Calipari gets tougher to toughen up Cats

Show Caption Hide Caption Video | Calipari previews EKU, reflects on UCLA loss UK coach John Calipari previews EKU and looks bacl on the Cats' loss at UCLA.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Losing has a way of opening eyes, of exposing weakness that was always there but easy to ignore while undefeated and ranked No. 1 as the Wildcats were until last week. UCLA shoved Kentucky in front of a mirror, though, and that defeat by double digits in Los Angeles has everyone involved taking a long look.

“That’s the hard thing with winning: You look at it as, ‘Oh, we won, so we don’t really know where we’re progressing,’ ” junior forward Derek Willis said. “But with a loss, it’s like, ‘We did these certain things wrong,’ and now you change those things.”

To that end, after toughness revealed itself as the fifth-ranked Cats’ biggest deficiency against the Bruins, coach John Calipari has set about addressing it in practice. Monday’s workout was “really grueling,” he said.

There’s no time to waste, as Eastern Kentucky (7-2), the sixth-highest scoring team in America, brings its breakneck attack to Rupp Arena on Wednesday night and surging Arizona State visits Saturday. Calipari has made sure UK (7-1) feels the urgency.

“We’re trying to hold them to a high standard in what we’re accepting,” he said. “If certain things weren’t done (Monday), we ran. If certain players weren’t doing what they were supposed to, we ran. Then it was like, ‘Now, if you want to keep running, keep doing it.’

“If this team is supposed to be by the end of the year what we all believe it can be, they’ve got to be empowered.”

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Video | Poythress on UK's lessons in loss UK forward Alex Poythress reflects on the lessons learned from the Wildcats' loss at UCLA.

Unlike last season, when the Wildcats steamrolled their way to a 38-0 start, this rebuilt roster is going to be a project. There are plenty of pieces — six former five-star recruits is not exactly starting from scratch — but at the moment too many new ones.

While beating a top-10 Duke team three weeks ago might’ve briefly skewed expectations for this group, the loss to UCLA quickly brought the bar back down.

“This isn’t last year for me. I understood what I had last year. I had the whip,” Calipari said. “This is different. We have to embrace this. I have to embrace it as a head coach, that it’s going to be really difficult and it’s going to be a process and there are going to be some games we look like, ‘Ummmm,’ along the way.

“And I’ve been here at Kentucky — we’ve had this, and by the end of the year we get things right and we get going.”

Good guard play gives a team a chance come postseason, and the Cats have three great guards, their coach notes. But they need some help, and so far there isn’t enough of it coming from the big men. More to the point, from 6-foot-11 freshman Skal Labissiere, who has been pushed around most of the season and especially the last two games.

“At the beginning of last year, Karl (Towns), he wanted to hit somebody. He was always looking for contact,” Willis said. “Willie (Cauley-Stein), he played football. He was used to it. It’s just one of the things that I think Skal is not comfortable with. We’re just trying to make him comfortable with it.”

By making Labissiere uncomfortable, mainly. Practices lately have no doubt been unpleasant for him. Senior forward Alex Poythress acknowledges that at 220 pounds (allegedly), Labissiere is a string bean facing grown men in the paint, “but he can’t use that as an excuse.”

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Video | Willis thinks UK can learn from loss UK forward Derek Willis thinks UK can learn from their loss at UCLA.

“I’ve seen skinny guys battle,” Calipari said. “You just have to have that mentality. Some of it’s gotta be your inner dialogue. What are you exactly saying to yourself when a shot goes up? You see the shot go up: ‘Who am I hitting?’ Versus: ‘I’m just running and, oh, is this hard. Whew.’

“(But) Skal is going to take time. It’s a process. Some guys get it quicker. Karl. Some guys don’t get it quicker.”

Poythress has had four years to get it. Based on bursts of high-flying dunks and blocks and rebounds, his surgically repaired left knee is fine. Now the Cats need him to step up until Labissiere does — or in case he doesn’t — and deliver a rugged inside presence they’ve been lacking.

“Doesn’t have to come from Skal. Alex, you be that guy,” Calipari said. “It’s important that you have a post presence, that the other team knows you can post it up, but it isn’t about that. This whole thing is battle and fight and come up with 50/50 balls, dive on the floor.”

That clearly isn’t coming naturally to this Kentucky team, so its coach is trying desperately to manufacture some grit.

“He’s turned it up a lot,” Poythress said. “That’s something we need. We need the intensity level to go up.”

Losing has a way of reminding talented teams that, of shining a harsh light on the little things they’ve somehow forgotten. Last season, the Cats bullied most of their opponents. This year, UCLA turned them upside down and shook the lunch money from their pockets.

In case UK thought it was, that delivered a message that this won’t be easy.

“Yesterday, we scrimmaged almost the whole practice,” Calipari said. “Up and down. They have to bring this out of each other. Like, if it takes you being mad, then be mad. I don’t really care. If it makes you happy, then it doesn’t matter to me. But something has got to bring that out of you, that battle, that, ‘Here I go, I’m going to get this ball, I don’t care who’s there.’ ”

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him at ktucker@courier-journal.com.