Assistant coach Tony Barbee, who substituted for Kentucky coach John Calipari at Friday's news conference, said the Wildcats improved significantly on defense in the last game.
A grading of film of the victory over North Dakota suggested close to 25 minutes of satisfactory defense, he said. That was an increase from "10 or 15 minutes" against Southern Illinois five days earlier. And Duke's 118 points in the opening game spoke (shouted?) for itself as only the second time in Calipari's 10 seasons as coach that a UK opponent hit the century mark and the most by an opponent since North Carolina scored 121 on Dec. 27, 1989.
With UK's defense on the uptick, the style of the opponent on Sunday may require more improvement still. VMI plays a variation of the Princeton offense, which means the likelihood of Kentucky needing to defend deep into the shot clock.
"We're going to have to be disciplined on defense because the ball's in motion," Barbee said. "All the movement. All the back cutting. The ability to shoot threes and space the floor, even from their center. It's going to be a challenging game from that standpoint."
Immanuel Quickley acknowledged the possible need to stay in a defensive stance and concentrate for 30-plus seconds is a challenge.
"It's definitely tough, especially with teams knowing we want to play fast ... .," he said. Generally, opponents will "try to hold the ball as long as they can to try to get into our legs," he added. "But I think this team does a really good job staying locked in and fighting through that fatigue."
Quoting Vince Lombardi, Barbee said that fatigue makes cowards of us all. "Just human nature to want to stop and stand up and look ...," he said. "When you're studying tape, you're going to pick on people on the other team that you see are the guys who stop, stand up and break down.
"We talked to our team before the last game. This is not hockey. We can't sub you on the fly."
The other challenge is UK's "bigs" being drawn away from the basket to defend three-point shooting from VMI's center position.
"I'm pretty comfortable, but trying to get better every day," EJ Montgomery said of defending on the perimeter.
When asked how often he defended on the perimeter prior to coming to UK, Montgomery said, "I blocked shots in high school. But I've learned a lot when I came to Kentucky."
Earlier in the week, Calipari likened VMI to Princeton. The image of Pete Carril's teams using patience and execution to compete against more heralded opponents, most famously a first-round 50-49 defeat of No. 1 Georgetown in the 1989 NCAA Tournament.
"I can certainly see him saying that," VMI Coach Dan Earl said. "We do have some of their tendencies."
Earl's brother, Brian Reed, played at Princeton in the 1990s, and now is coach at Cornell.
"Philosophically, I like a lot of what they do," the VMI coach said.
But VMI does not see itself as replicating the classic Princeton style.
"As you hear 'the Princeton offense,' some people think a little bit more old school, meaning hold the ball till the last three seconds of the shot clock, and millions of passes and just back cutting and all that," Earl said. "We're not trying to play that way at all.
"But we do have some of the tendencies where we bring the center out from the basket a little bit. We do like to have ball movement. So a bunch of different passes, a bunch of different guys touching the ball. Then we do like to cut, but we have more ball screens and, hopefully, shooting a little quicker than people think the Princeton offense is."
VMI's style figures to be in sharp contrast with the last time Kentucky played the Keydets. Ten years ago, VMI beat UK, 111-103.
"They're playing like a turtle compared to how we played," said Duggar Baucom, who was VMI's coach 10 years ago and now the coach at The Citadel. "Kind of a pseudo Princeton. It's not a traditional Princeton, but they're pretty meticulous in the shots they take."
Austin Kenon, a player for VMI 10 years ago and now an assistant coach, said the Keydets do not intend to play especially slow.
"We're definitely not as transition-oriented," he said in comparing VMI in 2018-19 with the team in 2008-09. "We do tell our guys to play fast, but that's not our priority. That's not our identity, shall I say ... . We play more off read and react, really ... . Trying to find the right plays and right read within our offense."
That is the challenge Kentucky's on-the-uptick defense faces on Sunday.
