Kentucky basketball had one of its worst defensive nights in years. John Calipari explains.

Saturday night was a nadir for Kentucky basketball on the defensive side of things.

A 103-92 home loss to No. 5-ranked Tennessee featured one of the worst defensive performances in modern history from the No. 10-ranked Wildcats.

For the first time since November 2018 (Duke), an opponent scored 100 points against the Cats. And it was the first time since February 1993 (Arkansas) that an SEC team reached that scoring mark.

Despite a career-best 35 points from freshman guard Rob Dillingham and 21 points from fifth-year guard Antonio Reeves, UK’s porous defense was too much to overcome in a heated rivalry game.

The Wildcats dropped 27 spots in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency rankings — from 75th to 102nd — following the dismal defensive effort.

Kentucky — now 15-6 overall and 5-4 in SEC games — has now lost back-to-back games for the first time this season, and drops to 0-3 on the season when freshman guard D.J. Wagner doesn’t play.

Wagner missed Saturday’s loss to the Vols with an ankle injury, and UK has a quick turnaround before a Tuesday night game at lowly Vanderbilt.

Safe to say, UK head coach John Calipari has some explaining to do.

Here’s everything Calipari said to reporters at Rupp Arena following another home loss.

(Calipari now has a losing record, 14-15, against AP top-five opponents while at Kentucky.)

Opening statement:

We had a chance. I watched a lot of tape and I have to give Tennessee credit. They played and made shots and did stuff. When you look and you say we shot what we did and we shot from the 3 what we did. They had a bunch of offensive rebounds. We had 22 second chance (points). 22.

Three plays hurt us out of bounds. Three plays. Two out of bounds. And again, when you don’t have the right guy on the ball, that stuff happens. But the kids fought. I haven’t lost any faith. We don’t have D.J. Teams are playing good against us and all our goals are still there. I have a good team.

We are young and still make some errors. We’ve got to get healthy.

Question about Kentucky’s physicality, especially early in the game.

Well, early on they were making every shot and doing it which is fine, but we were down 4 at the half. If we make a 3 it’s a one-point game. We had our chances. Again, I will have to watch the tape. Again, some stuff that went on – some shots that we missed. You got to have a bunch of guys playing at their best when you’re playing against a team like that, top-five team, and they are playing well. You got guys making shots that haven’t made shot. Making 3s. You have to play.

I like the fact we were there and we’re down seven and we missed four free throws. It’s the end of the game – you know, let’s go. Some of that stuff hurt us. I don’t want these guys to lose any faith. Your confidence does get shaken when you’re young. I thought Justin (Edwards) did a good job today. It’s great to have him back in there where he can go. He did some really good stuff.

Question about Kentucky’s poor defense on out-of-bounds plays.

The guy out of bounds was supposed to be standing under the basket and he wasn’t. They threw it right at the basket. The guy that got screened had to fight a little more.

Knocked the guy down, do whatever you have to... you cant give them that. And then we fell asleep on the corner. They had two layups and a corner 3.

Question about Kentucky’s defensive struggles.

Some of it in this game – there were things that we talked about. You can’t let this team get to the elbows. And we were saying the same thing. We have to be a little more sound defensively in what we are doing and we are going to have to be a collective defensive team.

I keep saying it. If one guy stops playing, it’s going to hurt this group. We do it together, we can hold our own. But you’ve got to rebound. To start the game. Come on, you know. They had too many attempts. Just about each one of them — they scored a basket. That’s defense too, by the way.

Question about Tre Mitchell struggling in recent games and not scoring against Tennessee.

He struggled a little bit and we will sit down with him and figure it out. Last game I stuck with him way too long and this game I said look, maybe it’s not your game, and we got to get you back. We play Tuesday. We are on the road. There will be another sold-out game. Vandy won tonight. Now we are playing a team that’s confident and they been in every game and now we are walking into their place. You’ve got to bounce back. We are still one of those teams. We lost two games to teams that played well and deserved to beat us.

Question about what Calipari’s message is to UK’s frontcourt players.

Here is what happens. Guard, so that they are not pushing you out away and wanting to rebound. And two, so they get layups. Just don’t accept it. That’s the first thing. Again, we are still missing a lot of baskets two feet from the goal that we’ve got to make. We had a dunk to Aaron that should have been a dunk in the first half.

Those kind of plays, like I told them, we have to make those. Those are easy plays. We are a perimeter oriented team which should open up the lane for some of these guys .And we’ve got some stuff, but we’ve got to be better.

Question about confidence of players after two straight home losses.

First of all, I told them after – that team played really well and you fought and had your chances. Some of the breakdowns we can talk about and get better. But I told them, every goal that we have is still out in front of us. We are fine if we come together and understand. I said Justin played well and did some good stuff. Robert (Dillingham) did well. Robert kept us in the game. In the first half we were down 4 because Robert made basket after basket.

Reed (Sheppard) did some good stuff. We got to get healthy. It’s hard to get a rotation going when you are short-handed. I thought Adou (Thiero) did some really good stuff today. Adou rebounded and scored at the rim and made free throws. He did good stuff today.

Question about allowing 103 points to Tennessee even though Dalton Knecht only scored 16 points.

Well, we talked about – you want to guard him but you also know the other guys can play. They’re dangerous. What those guys have done, they had five guys in double figures. They hadn’t had that. They had him and the other guy is getting six to eight points. Those guys are capable. (Zakai) Zeigler is capable, (Santiago) Vescovi’s capable. Obviously (Josiah-Jordan) James, the way he played tonight, is capable.

One of the things I told my guys before the game is some of you guys are going to have to have some big games here. You’re just going to have to. That’s what happens in these kind of games. Two top teams that are top five, we were top 10. It’s hard for these young kids. I just got to keep being positive and let’s go. Next game move on. We got everything out in front of us. The league is really good. We’ll see where it goes.

Question about the lack of home-court advantage in college basketball this season.

New teams. Most guys have new teams. We have a young team. We got the youngest team in the country. Most teams are new teams and when stuff hits you are still learning what and who is what and what they can do. Some veteran teams may be better at it but most of the teams – you know, Tennessee is a veteran team. The have added one piece and that piece is pretty good. They are a veteran team.

But it’s the same whether it be losing at home or losing to teams that are unranked. It is happening to everybody. That’s why I keep coming back to. I’d say today’s game and South Carolina. We were possessions away from all of these other games. That’s why you got to stay the course. You can’t listen to the negative stuff. You can’t listen to all of the clutter. We are still a good team and now we have to get healthy and we have to get back on track. But, there is a lot of people that would like to have my team.

Question about D.J. Wagner’s injury status.

He is probably – I’d say – I don’t even want to say. OK. I’m expecting him to play soon. Sooner than later.

But you know, he did the high ankle sprain and came back against Penn. He’s done OK. He’s freshman of the week four different times. So its not like he played awful but we need him healthy. If it was really bothering him. We’ve done some things and I think he’s getting healthy. It’s like you all know, when he doesn’t play, we don’t win. You know that. We can go crazy about this and it’s that and it’s this. Let’s get our team together. We’ve still got good players. Thank you.

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