John Calipari’s offense is simple.
Lucky for him, his players are beasts.
And he unleashed his beasts on Florida in a methodic 89-77 victory Tuesday night.
I imagine Calipari’s instructions inside the Kentucky huddle are no more complicated than a children’s nursery rhyme.
See John Wall run. Run John run. John runs fast.
Only John’s not the cute little spotted dog from the book. He’s a pit bull — a trained killer.
Coach Cal’s best friend is given simple orders: Push the ball up the court as fast as you can and as far as you can.
Look first for an easy lay-in for yourself. If that’s not there, a quick pass for a layup or dunk. And if all else fails, kick it back out for an open jump shot, or reset the offense from there.
The third option is not usually needed.
I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that the Wildcats don’t practice with a ball. Wall and Eric Bledsoe, who went off for 25 points against the Gators, probably just lead the team out to the track where they run sprints for two hours.
“When Wall’s coming up the floor 100 miles per hour, Bledsoe is resting and when Bledsoe is coming up the floor, Wall is resting,” UF coach Billy Donovan said. “So it’s kind of like a two-headed monster the way they come at you off the dribble.”
Off of every missed shot, Kentucky got out and ran.
The Wildcats big men gave the ball up quickly to the speedy Wall and Bledsoe, and they did the rest.
It’s worth noting that perhaps the best — certainly the quickest — backcourt in the nation is comprised of two freshmen. Two freshmen who look like they’ve been running fast breaks for as long as they could dribble a basketball.
As good as Kentucky’s high-speed offensive attack is, I wasn’t sold on its defense. If the Gators could have shot better than 30 percent in the first half, the result would have been totally different.
Donovan has UF committed on the defensive end, and the improvement is noticeable. But without Nick Calathes, it doesn’t appear that the Gators have a way of generating easy baskets the way Kentucky does with Wall and Bledsoe.
Walker turned in an admirable performance — 20 points — but got little help from anyone besides Alex Tyus, who hit two threes with the shot clock winding down, dumped in 17 points and was the only UF big man not to run and hide from Patrick Patterson and DeMarcus Cousins.
The game looked up in the air with as few as five minutes remaining, but the Wildcats’ wild dogs had one last finishing push at the end of the marathon.
When Walker almost single-handedly brought back the Gators with his 16 second-half points, Bledsoe hit a three from the wing to extend the lead to six points and Wall made the play of the game, blocking Boynton off the glass from behind on a runout before sinking four free throws to ice the game.
As it turns out, Calipari’s beasts also have a little greyhound in them.
