Matt Jones on Kentucky’s SEC Tournament loss to Texas A&M

Kentucky Sports Radio host Matt Jones opened up the postgame show breaking down Kentucky’s Quarterfinal round loss to Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament.

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Um unfortunately this has become kind of a uh normal situation here in the last few years at the SEC tournament as the cats take an early loss I’m sitting here with Ryan I’ll do a little bit of an intro and then I’ll let him uh talk

So you know I try to be nuanced in the way I look at this stuff and I feel that way about this that there’s the there’s the sort of bigger picture how Kentucky has played in this particular event and then there’s the other picture of okay

What about the rest I mean there’s still another the NCA tournament is still to come and there’s still one to six games left uh in the season but let’s start with tonight and the loss in the SEC tournament I hate this for the people down here I I hate how things have gone

In this tournament I mean this was a tournament that Kentucky has owned really since it restarted for many many years I mean they won during Cal Perry’s first uh however many years I think I saw he was 23 and three in the SEC tournament in his first uh nine or nine

Years or whatever and in the last four years we’ve won one game we have the 13th out of 14 teams in the SEC we’re 13th out of 14 in record in the SEC tournament the last four years 13th out of 14 that’s awful I mean that’s awful that’s absolutely awful and when you

Consider what this tournament is for UK fans it’s even worse and I’m not going to wax poetic about it but I’ve been coming to this tournament in some form since like 1990 maybe 1989 I I think we went for like a game in 1989 but in 1990 and you

Know it’s one of my favorite weekends of the year has been my entire life from when I went with my grandfather to now when all my friends are here but that’s not just true for me I mean that’s true for thousands of people oh yeah this to

Me is the best crowd you get at entucky games the Nashville SEC tournament crowd is the best of the Kentucky fan base no offense to rep Arena folks because that can be great too but this is there’s a little bit of everybody here you know in the recent years as Nashville’s grown

More expensive it’s it’s you know harder but there are people who come to these games who don’t get to go to any other games right and the atmosphere is electric during that run in the first half I thought to myself this is as loud as I’ve can remember

This this place being yep I mean it was electric as Kentucky was making their run uh in the first half and so I hate for these people that this is now four years in a row where we’ve gone home very early only one semi-final in the

Last four years only one victory in the last four years so I hate it I mean this place was rolling I would say I mean that gym holds what 18,000 I’d say 16,000 of them were Kentucky fans I don’t know who’s left in that Arena now

But it can’t be many people cleared out um so that stinks Kentucky was manhandled today I mean I you know when I think about the game I’m kind of it’s odd we only lost by 10 it feels like all our members in making shots yeah you

Know uh they in the first half hit a ton of Threes in the second half you know they just got to the rim whenever they wanted whenever they wanted our guards just couldn’t they couldn’t guard them I mean that’s the bottom line we just can’t we we could not stop the ball and

Everything defense starts with stopping the ball and we can’t we we could not stop the ball and this is how it was every game earlier this year if you remember and then things have been better in the last few weeks but not tonight I mean we gave up 95 I think

Down there at A&M and 97 tonight against a team that’s not that great offensively it’s only two times they’ scored in the 90s all year is that right yep I mean they they’re 360th in the country in three-o percentage and they hit 11 H 12 hit 12 hit 12 they’re 360th in the

Country in 3o percent now it’s not hard to do when you when you’re wide open they were some wide open looks um so it stinks I mean I you know there are little things you could point out but three things stood out to me just in

Terms of the actual game one I it’s probably too late and it is what it is I I play your best play start your best players yeah start your best players down eight to one eight to one start never came back never came back that race to 10 on DraftKings has always been

Take the other team NE never came back why why do we do that why do we put a lineup this is my my question for people who defend that lineup why do we put a lineup on the floor that we don’t play at any other point the rest of the game

True at time they play we never play that lineup the rest of the game ever no we play The Players but we never play them together for the rest of the G so why do we do it there why do you start a lineup That clearly is not good enough

That you never go back to it that’s just there’s not a logical answer there’s no logical answer we’re going to look back and we’re going to have two guys go in the top five to seven of the draft and neither one of them starts and I don’t there’s I don’t understand it I

Don’t understand if that lineup was even close to good you would play it later in the game but we never do because it’s not a good lineup to play cuz we can’t score and as far as you would say well you could put it in for defense well

That didn’t stop anybody either no right and at this point like waiting two and a half minutes and then putting Reed or Robbie in why are you even like why nobody’s tired yet like what’s the it’s just it doesn’t make sense so that’s number one number two we just aren’t good with

Physicality we just aren’t I mean when teams are physical with us we are not good um the officiating I I I do think Kentucky was on the Lo losing end of the officiating but with that said it was officiated as a game where they were

Going to let them play for most of it now it got a little tighter down the stretch but for most of it they let him play him we just aren’t good at that and there’s going to be a game in the NCA tournament where the referees do that

Absolutely and we’re and we’re just not good at that um and our guys shy away from it and then I think third a lot of the things that we are good at and have been great at this year they kind of got away from they didn’t share the ball

There was a lot of kind of running up and throwing stuff up on the glass especially unfortunately by Rob who I can’t I can’t Crush Rob for it because that gets to me I was surprised at how much our players didn’t seem to want to shoot in the second half

I really thought only Rob and Antonio and Antonio was in foul trouble the whole game only Rob and Antonio seemed to want the ball now I think that led Rob to take some bad shots but Reed only shot twice and he passed up a lot of open looks yeah he didn’t score the

Second half I don’t remember one shot did he shoot twice I think he shot twice and he passed up a lot of open looks and it was clear to me some of the other guys didn’t want to shoot at all yeah when they got the ball it was when can I

Get rid of it that’s one of the reasons I really like a do is he’s not scared no and Rob’s not scared no so and and I don’t think Antonio’s scared but some of the guys seem scared to me yeah tonight and they haven’t been

Like that all year and it made me wonder I just watched it and thought this team looks tight they look tight they look this team that has been so much fun because they run up and down the court and they feel like this energy and it’s

What’s made the fan base love them and they’re excited and they’re happy for the first time this year it looked to me like they were scared to lose they looked tense and A&M the one that looked loose they Lo loose and they were the ones who were fighting for their

Tournament for the tournament and they looked tense and again cal looked tense yeah he did he was Cal was tense I sat I sat right directly across from Cal I was on the front row on the other side that was he’s not been like that this year no

He’s been a lot more calm this year and tonight he was screaming and it was like is he tense it felt like the way all the games felt like a couple years ago where it was like it kind of felt like that tonight and look is this lost the end of the

World no I still think this team and and there’ll be people who disagree with me on this I still think they could go on a run in the I there aren’t a lot of teams so if you want to be positive there’s not a lot of teams like A&M there’s not

A lot of teams that physical there’s not a lot of teams that have a guy as good as Wade Taylor they’re a bad matchup for us so we might not even see a team like that in the tournament so I still I’m not giving up but I don’t like how tense they

Looked cuz they haven’t been like that all year even in the bad times I didn’t think they look tense no and they looked tense and Cal looked tense there was a lot of yelling and it was not like it’s been and so you know we’ve talked all

Year Cal kind of said built for March built for March well that’s it’s March that puts a lot on March yep right you know when that puts a lot on March and I thought they look like they had a lot on March so now we’ll see what happens I’m

Bummed for the fans here this is a it’s sad like walking around people are just sad and people I was surprised how angry people were in the crowd you sat there right next to me you heard you heard oh yes I was surprised I mean I haven’t

Gone to a lot of games this year I’ve been to two games at were up and then that game in Philly so I hadn’t been and like you know it’s just a lot there’s a lot on this team right now and a lot of pressure GNA be in these next three

Weeks I do want to commend Cal I thought what his comments in the post game were good because he expressed what I said about the fans that he hated for him that they didn’t play for a guy who’s he hadn’t always really acted like this tournament mattered he didn’t do that

Tonight and I give him a lot of credit for that because that fans didn’t want to hear that right and so I give him credit for saying because he’s right this is a big deal to people but you know they they’ve lost three straight games in the SEC tournament for

The first time in the history of the school oh first time in the history of the school they’ve lost three straight games in the SEC tournament uh only the second time in the history of the school that they’ve gone five years without making the finals of the SEC tournament and the

Last time it was 1929 to 1933 so with all that Ryan what do you think well you you hit on I think on the main points Texas A&M is just it it they’re a bad matchup for Kentucky they physical and they had a guard that could

Get to the rim they have two guards to get to the rim anytime they want anytime anytime we could not stop the drive for Wellford Redford or uh Wade Taylor Wade Taylor either one of them the big guys push us around bully us around they did

It the January they did it again this time but you said it man you’ve got a major home court advantage you’re not going to get a better home court advantage than this this is like for if you’ve never been here this is like Allen Fieldhouse Kansas loud yes you cannot get a better

Homecourt Advantage than they have here nope and you haven’t been able to take advantage of it here two years in a row on your first game of the tournament it’s it’s it it’s it’s it’s becoming embarrassing when you said we’re 13th out of 14 SEC teams in our tournament

Record here that’s that’s a that’s embarrassing man embarrassing when we have the best homec court advantage by far I mean by far there are so many Kentucky fans a home game Kentucky they did a thing at the end where they played the swag surfing song and they were

Winning by like 10 so they were swag surfing and our fans weren’t and it just occurred to me how few people they had yeah I mean they had like a sex you know 12 rows behind the bench about 12 rows behind you and that was about it I mean there was

Like you know I mean so look you know what you know go ahead those people behind you may have been Alabama fans now I think about it well yeah there weren’t many A&M fans so you know look I’m not this isn’t just me being oh Matt’s too optimistic or too pessimistic I

Still think if they got a certain draw in the tournament they could go to the final for because there are teams that cannot play with us but I thought when we beat Tennessee and when we beat Mississippi State on the road I kind of thought now

We have a recipe to beat the teams we don’t match up well with yeah because I know we can beat the teams we do match up well with and I said on the pregame show I was more worried about this game than the other ones because of that matchup

But now to not only lose but kind of get our our tail kicked got manhandled man if we see one of those teams in the tournament and there aren’t many of them but if we do we’ll have trouble it’s hard to feel confident I think you also

Saw tonight how important Reeves is to the offensive part of this he was in foul trouble and because he was in foul trouble he wasn’t in long enough to get a rhythm and we when he is not in we struggle to get Guys open in the first

Half Shephard was able to do it by himself Shepard kept us in the game in the first half and then in the second half though you saw we were with when he’s not in we really struggle to get Guys open for shots and you end up with

Dillingham kind of having to do as much as he can do and he went on a run where he scored like seven points in a minute but we just didn’t have enough with anybody else with all that said we gave up 97 and so winning when you give up 97

Is going to be pretty off and didn’t it feel like 197 it felt like they scored every single time did like they hit every shot if it wasn’t a three-pointer it was a straight line drive to the basket it felt like they scored every time down the floor if they

Had missed a bunch of free throws they would have had over a hundred oh yeah missed a bunch of free throws and you know I do think there was a there were some touch fouls at at the end like I think we got the negative end of the

Officiated but it’s not why we lost no no it’s not why we lost nope we lost because they beat us they met they may and they man handled us from the start to the Finish we LED one nothing and never LED again and it’s probably too late at this point to change the

Lineup but I if we don’t win it this year I mean I don’t mean win the whole thing but if we don’t get to the elite a or the final four there’s there’s going to be a part of me that’s going to look back and go why did we do it like this

Why do we need to make it harder than it has to be I don’t know you know why we got to be down8 to one every game that’s why that race to 10 on DraftKings that’s the only one bet I win every year every game now you brought up that point about

Reeves sitting out in foul trouble so that meant that meant their best defender switched Reeves is on the bench started guarding Reed and that bothered re that bothered him yeah and Reeves I thought I thought that third foul on Reeves the first one in the second half

Was a bad call and it made a big difference though because it takes him out and you know I thought Cal left him on the bench a little too long when he got his fourth but regardless of all that when he’s not in even if he’s it’s just the threat of him changes

Everything for everybody else yep and and teams have a decision to make with their guards they’re going to put one of their best ones on Antonio yes so then they have to pick their poison yeah am I going to make Reed Shepard beat me or am

I gonna make Rob dillam beat me and if you go back and look at when Reed had his run it was when Reeves was in before he got his second foul yep and then when you go back and you look when Dillingham had his run it was when Reeves was in

After they put him back in after his fourth you he makes a big difference and and I and then some of the guys just look scared man I I hate it but they looked like they they look like for the first time this year they looked like they had

The weight of the world on yeah you remember that you you leaned over you were sitting right behind me and you said hey this is a big possession it was a six-point game yep six-point game with four minutes to go something like that I said can get a stop right

Here and they got an A and one yeah and instead of getting a stop they gave up a three-point play yeah got an A and one and that so now it goes up to nine yeah whereas we we stop them come down you know we can hit a three on even position

Three-point game yeah that by the they couldn’t get over like the fivepoint hump it was fivepoint game like uhuh the whole time so all right 859 280 2287 I’m I mean I’m I’m bummed I’ll be honest with you I’m bummed I love I love this tournament I love coming down here I

Love seeing the faces you know I love that show we do today I love I love this thing and I hate what it’s been like these last few years I hate looking at all those people when it’s over and how dis because when we go play next week or

Even the week after we won’t have as many fans there as we had here never no this is a this is rup Arena right here maybe at the final four you get that many but these first two like we will not have as many people as we’re here

And they’re loud and and it it stinks all right 859 28022 287 Billy will open the lines we will take a break and come back this is the uh local toy