Adou Thiero is “day-to-day,” Florida status uncertain​

Quietly lost in the shuffle of Kentucky’s blowout win over Illinois State was Thiero’s absence — “general soreness” was the official listing on the injury report, later confirmed as a minor back issue.

Where do things stand ahead of the Wildcats’ trip to Gainesville?

“He’s day-to-day, so I don’t know,” Calipari said Monday. “The players on Saturday had an individual work day, were off Sunday, then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are two-a-days. Thursday, we’ll scale back Friday, the day before the game. Then Saturday at noon, sold-out arena — it’s been sold out for a month. Florida, they’re waiting on us.”


Will he play in that matchup? Again, to be determined.

“Hopefully, Adou plays sooner than later,” he added. “But one guy’s misery is another guy’s opportunity.”


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Obviously defense is our biggest deficiency right now. We've talked a lot about offensive lineups, so I wanted to look at what our best defensive lineups have been this year.

Here are the 5-man lineups sorted by defensive efficiency (points given up per 100 possessions, adjusted to strength of opponent) according to EvanMiya:


Dillingham, Sheppard, Reeves, Mitchell, Bradshaw looks to be the best defensive lineup thus far, giving up less than 50 points per 100 possessions, though it's far from the best offensive lineup.

Seems like Dillingham, Wagner, Sheppard, Thiero, Mitchell gives us the best balance between defense and offense.


And because the sample size on 5-man lineups can be small here are the 3-man lineups:


Seems like Dillingham and Sheppard are the key to a lot of our best defensive combos.

I mean that's all that matters, isn't it?

OC and DC kicked to the curb. Sounds like a last resort to save his own job.

I always thought you earned your playing minutes in practice? There is no way in hell Edwards is out playing his teammates in practice to get all these Minutes. In games he can’t score inside because of Physicality, he can’t defend, and he can’t rebound. Are you telling me he is doing this in practice??????
You can see now these SEC teams are watching film on us by attacking Edwards and scheming against us on defense. I rather give Jordan Burks a shot. Edwards needs to be put on a shelf and into the gym working on his body and his game. There is no LIGHT for him that will be turned on! Not this season anyways.

We are absolutely loaded 1-10 and it will be completely inexcusable if we don't bring home #9. What a melt down we would have. I pray that by tourney time Cal plays who needs to be playing and leaves the feelings behind.

meaning from me to Cal : We can get a ton better by these few things .. I'm doing this for no charge , not even a 100K
1) Fix the rotation . Ugo gets zero minutes . He's a project not a player that can us to the FF or win hard road games . Share the minutes at the 5 between AB and Z . Z has to get 25-28 minutes .
2) Thiero immediately gets the majority of Edwards minutes . If hes out there dunking in pregame hes good enough to play . Insert him , fixes some of our lack of muscle and toughness .
3) Tell Rob there are 2 ends to a basketball court and he has to play some D , same goes for Wagner whose D is awful .
4) Zone OOB plays , dont cry about assignments etc , ZONE the damn OOB from the baseline .. every possession matters .
5) Ditch the set where our guys loop and rotate with meaningless movement , yeah they are moving but at 1/2 speed and not thru any screens , and teach these AAU studs how to run a guy into a screen .. I'm afraid they think " I'm so damn good I dont need a screen " ah scoreboard .
That alone would make us sooooo much better off and more difficult to beat . And I'm just a washed up Bennie . PS play zone a few possessions a game to break the other teams rhythm .

I’m assuming it has something to do with Klutch sports and our moron of a coach?

He has shown absolutely nothing. And will dart at the sound of the last buzzer to get drafted 39th overall. This program is broken.

And ask THEM if they think it matters who starts?

How about Thiero?

Bet he never does that cuz Cal won't engineer it like he did the one with Rob and Reed.

Dybantsa, Knox… it doesn’t matter. As long as the Pillsbury dough boy is at the helm, it’ll just be another season of “coulda, shoulda, woulda”.

Cal makes Dean Smith look like John Wooden.

Sorry if this was said in another thread but looks like Adou pracitced today. Hopefully we get him back tomorrow or Saturday.

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And we were not playing top 10 opponents.

KENTUCKY MEN’S BASKETBALL POSTGAME NOTES
COLONIAL LIFE ARENA | COLUMBIA, SC
JAN. 23, 2024
ATTENDANCE: 18,000



Final Score: South Carolina 79, No. 6 Kentucky 62



Team Records and Series Notes

• Kentucky is 14-4 on the season, 4-2 in the Southeastern Conference.
• South Carolina is 16-3 overall, 4-2 in league play.
• UK leads the series 54-15, including 21-10 in games played in Columbia.
• Next for Kentucky: UK finishes a two-game road swing Saturday at Arkansas. Game time is 6 p.m. ET (5 p.m. CT in Fayetteville) and it will be televised on ESPN.

Team Notes

• Kentucky scored a season-low 62 points tonight. The Wildcats entered the game leading the nation at 91.6 points per game.
  • UK ended streaks of scoring at least 87 points in eight straight games and scoring at least 90 in four straight SEC games.
• UK continued its recent stretch of good free-throw shooting, making 8 of 9 for 88.9%.

Player Notes

• Rob Dillingham led UK with 16 points, his 15th double-figure game of the season.
• Antonio Reeves had 15 points.
  • He has landed in double figures in every game but one this season.
• Tre Mitchell tallied 13 points, making 5 of 8 from the field and both free throws.
  • It is his 12th double-figure scoring game of the season.
  • He also led the Wildcats in rebounding with five and had two blocked shots.

Coach John Calipari

• Calipari has an 846-257 (76.7%) all-time on-court record, including 401-117 (77.4%) at Kentucky.
• Calipari is 330-67 (83.1%) at UK against unranked competition.
• Calipari is 16-6 vs. South Carolina.
• Calipari is now 397-128 (75.6%) all-time in conference games, including 189-62 (75.3%) in the SEC.

In the First Half

• Kentucky started D.J. Wagner, Antonio Reeves, Justin Edwards, Tre Mitchell and Aaron Bradshaw for the ninth game in a row. UK is 7-2 in this lineup.
• Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard were UK’s first substitutions at the 16:52 mark.
• Kentucky led 21-16 with 8:33 left, but South Carolina closed the half with a 17-4 run and took a 33-25 lead into intermission.
• It is UK’s lowest-scoring half of the season; previous low 33 in the first half vs. UNCW.
• Dillingham led the Wildcats with 11 points.
• UK is now 1-3 this season when trailing at halftime.

In the Second Half

• Kentucky began the second half with the starting lineup.
• Kentucky closed within 40-38 but South Carolina went on a 26-8 spurt for the largest lead of the game, 66-46, with six minutes remaining.
• Kentucky got within 14 points on two occasions but no closer.

The opposing environment, the opponent making MORE 3's than normal, his kids being young and hating contact, his guards pounding the ball instead of passing or going to the basket and when Tom asks him how they fix it, he sounds SKEPTICAL that the team can!!!!

This dude is getting paid $9 million/year!!!!!! You MUST have the ANSWERS or you need to QUIT!!!!

and we're (hopefully) back to getting into Final Fours we should be getting into .....

I wonder what it's going be like when former Cats who got drafted but didn't do squat in the tournament, try and tell current Cats "back in my day when we played". Will the coach then even want them around? I'm just venting because what's happening on the court shouldn't be happening with this amount of talent, and with a coach who SHOULD know better and SHOULD have been held accountable years ago.

Please understand you are a heck of a collection of individual talents. When this team succeeds you all succeed. The only thing that could derail your success is outside noise and jealousy. Embrace each other, play for each other and do not worry who scores the most points. Again, if the team succeeds you all will. This is the most impressive collection of talent since 2015 and if you all play for each other you can bring home # 9. Now go get it done…..GBB

With the Alabama mass exodus of players
I know 30 day window for them

If Coen leaves and we start this after spring practice - only a few months for players transferring to find new homes

Barion
Vandagriff
Key
Macklin


We gotta be ready like the rest of the SEC and the NCAA

As bad as Alabama has been hit in portal

U know they be raiding come this spring

It’s getting Nasty in The NCAA

Transfer Apocalypse

In saying this statement , The Kats have killed the portal imo
Love what they are doing

12 team play-off
If we become the Kings of the Portal or Top 5 in portal every year along with the way we develop young players, it's a blessing because due to a new rule #portal


We can become a solid contender every year for the final 12 and the playoff
With the right moves , the ball is in the UK athletics, make us contenders like every wants or just drop the ball

Login to view embedded media Or maybe because Kentucky lets teams get 3s with nobody within 10 feet of the guy, and actively lets teams get good looks off all game

Has done an amazing job of turning that program around in 2 years. They played as hard and tough as anyone I have seen. They guarded and went after every lose ball and rebound. They never took a possession off.

1. Edwards needs to be benched, I have tried supporting him but it’s just not clicking and it hasn’t all season. I’ll never understand starting him and 2 minutes into the game taking him out….. just start Reed or Rob if you’re going to do that. He’s a liability, he played 23 minutes tonight and only shot ONCE! He’s lazy with the ball, cannot make simple shots, bad at defense, turnover prone…. Why is he playing? He brings nothing to the team at the moment.

2. I really wish Cal would play a zone with this team, I’m sure he won’t but he needs to give it a chance. Why continue to play man when everyone is getting beat off the dribble?

2nd year head coach takes his ONE NBA player and beats our coach and his 8.

leaving the opponents 3 pt shooters WIDE OPEN???????


With (3) 7' footers and Tre, why not rotate in the lane WITHOUT leaving the 3 pt shooters?????!!!!

We give up WAY too many open 3 pt attempts.

Then you add in that fact that Cal NEVER runs plays to free up his scorers. The Pick-And-Roll at the top is NOT an offensive set that will succeed against STRONG defenders.

I'm SOOOOOO sick of seeing these 2 areas that KILL us in tough games!!!

It will be a dramatic contrast of tempo tomorrow night. Kentucky is 9th and AdjT and South Carolina is 351. There hasn’t been a team really slow Kentucky down all season, so it will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow night.

Not the SEC, not the NCAA. Not close.

Cal is a fraud and this is what UK is stuck with until he’s gone.

I love UK basketball. I love all UK sports teams and our student-athletes. I love the university. I love Lexington. I love being in the SEC.

However, I passionately dislike our men's basketball coach and have no respect for the man. I don't think this makes me a disloyal fan.

Am I?