LEXINGTON, Ky. — Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey long ago posted a sign in the Notre Dame team’s locker room. It reads: “Don’t skip class. Don’t throw the ball away. You and I will get along just fine.”
Brey considers this a fundamental message about basketball.
“That’s kind of my first team meeting right there,” he said Thursday. “Period.”
It’s surely not coincidental that Notre Dame led the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio last year. In the game against Kentucky on Saturday, Notre Dame will play an opponent that currently ranks No. 277 in assist-to-turnover ratio. Through four games, Kentucky has 47 assists and 73 turnovers. Of the six players averaging the most minutes, only Davion Mintz has more assists (11) than turnovers (seven).
“Everybody’s trying to make the hardest play,” UK coach John Calipari said Friday. “I call them hero’s plays because it means more to them because it’s how they’ve played their whole life.”
Since losing to Georgia Tech last Sunday, Kentucky has focused in practice on reducing turnovers.
“If it’s important to me, it’ll be important to them,” Calipari said. “And now they know this is important to me.”
With Kentucky having lost three straight for only the second time in his 12 seasons as coach, Calipari has set an immediate goal for Saturday’s game against Notre Dame. It echoes back to the surprising sense of cohesion he said he saw in the opening-game victory over Morehead State.
“My hope is people watch this game and say, ‘All right. I can see what he’s trying to do. It looks different . . . ,’ ” Calipari said. “It’s all (about) what does this look like? Not just how we play. Do they look like they’re maturing? Do they look like they’re accepting coaching?”
Calipari said he had detected bad body language when players were substituted out of a game.
As for UK’s turnovers, coaches do not hesitate to suggest that good guard play is Basketball 101.
“It’s like playing baseball without a pitcher and a catcher and a shortstop and a second baseman and a center fielder,” Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes said. “You’ve got no shot if you’re not good up the middle.”
When asked about the importance of guard play, Brey recalled being a young high school coach attending a clinic conducted by Abe Lemons. The Texas coach turned off the projector and got to the point.
“Let me tell you something,” Brey recalled Lemons saying. “If you ain’t got guards, you ain’t got dot-dot-dot.”
Said Brey: “And I’m a firm believer in the Abe Lemons philosophy.”
The Notre Dame coach saw assist-to-turnover ratio as a good guide in assessing a guard.
“It’s kind of what we hang our hat on,” he said.
Through three games, Notre Dame has 47 assists and 31 turnovers. The ratio for its three guards is 37-19: Prentiss Hubb 16-11, Cormac Ryan 13-4 and Dane Goodwin 8-4.
All three are juniors, which reinforces the idea expressed by coaches that it takes time for a player to settle into the role of a ball-handling guard.
“Everyone assumes because they bring the ball up the court or that they initiate (offense), that they’re a point guard,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “And that’s not true at all. There’s very few true point guards that come into college as true point guards. . . .
“A point guard’s got to be able to understand time, score, momentum, how to pick his spots, how to run a team, how to have intangibles. There’s so many things going on with it.”
Through four games, freshman Devin Askew has eight assists and 13 turnovers as Kentucky’s starting point guard.
Past freshman point guards for Kentucky provide perspective.
Marquis Teague had 11 assists and 18 turnovers through the first four games of UK’s national championship season of 2011-12. He finished with a ratio of 191-109.
Brandon Knight had nine assists and 18 turnovers through four games in 2010-11. He finished with a ratio of 159-120.
John Wall, perhaps the most celebrated point guard during Calipari’s time as UK coach, averaged 4.5 turnovers through his first four games. His ratio in the 2009-10 season was 241-149.
“You’re never going to look like you’re well coached if you don’t have good guard play,” Barnes said. “I don’t care how hard you work.”
Brandon Boston spoke of Kentucky getting more assists and less turnovers.
“We still have 10 new guys who’ve never played basketball together,” he said. “So, we’re still trying to jell. . . . I feel like it’s going to come one day. Sooner than later.”
Beginning with the game against Notre Dame, Calipari kept returning to the theme of Kentucky simply appearing more like a team with a unified purpose.
“I just want the game to look different. So we can all look and say, whew, we’re going to be all right. I don’t mean win or lose right now. It is let’s play the right way. Winning takes care of itself.”
