Shortage of Effort and Playing With Oscar Tshiebwe Headline Kentucky's Struggles in Gonzaga Loss

Jacob Toppin had the quote of the night following No. 4 Kentucky's 88-72 loss to No. 2 Gonzaga on Sunday night:

"I don't want to speak for any guys but ... in some moments guys can't step up ... me included. I didn't make shots in the first half at all, I didn't rebound, I got to be better, my teammates got to be better, we all got to be better. You can say what you want, but at the end of the day we're going to put this on ourselves."

A lack of effort. Against the No. 2 team in the nation. On the road.

Ouch. That's a hard thing to grasp if you missed the game and only saw the final score.

If you laid your eyes upon the stomping in Spokane, however, that lack of effort was eye-popping from the moment the game began. An 8-0 run to open the game propelled Mark Few and the Bulldogs into the lead, something they would hold for nearly the entire 40 minutes of game-time.

Meanwhile, Kentucky moved at a decrepit pace on offense, resulting in just eight makes and just 25 points in the first half. In every aspect, the Bulldogs were two steps ahead of John Calipari's squad.

"I was a little worried that they were imposing their will on us instead of us -- we talked about it for two days," the UK head coach said post-game. "We have to impose our will on them or you won't win this game. And we didn't do it. We just didn't.

"We had no fight in the first half and we put ourselves in a hole that we couldn't dig out of," Toppin added. "We got a little stagnant on offense, so it was really just us. Obviously, it's always us against us ... we have to be better."

Once again, star center Oscar Tshiebwe was a bright spot, putting up 20 points and 15 rebounds as he tried his damndest to keep the Wildcats afloat. While the numbers are there, a glaring issue presented itself once again when the reigning National Player of the Year was on the court: the Cats still aren't used to operating with him down in the paint.

"Oscar's practiced like twice," Calipari said. "We're a different team without him and now we just got to figure it out. And I say all that, and he ends up with 20 points and 15 rebounds. Think about what we just said."

As for the All-American and NPOY, he was far from thrilled from his performance on Sunday, knowing there's much more he could've down to try and give his teammates a shot at victory.

"I really kind of hurt my team because I started slow, I was not really stepping up like I should, I got to get better," Tshiebwe said. "I think we're gonna get everything figured out ... I'm still confident in my team, we still looked good."

It's only November, but a similar pattern of potential problems have already shown up for the Wildcats twice, one of which being trying to force the basketball to Tshiebwe when he's in the game.

Sure, it's a fair question to ask "why is this a problem?" and "don't you wan't someone like Tshiebwe to get the ball all the time on offense?"

The answer to your question will be yes. But for now, it's no.

Kentucky has barely played with Tshiebwe as a piece to the rotation. Getting him fully immersed into what this year's Kentucky team wants to do will clearly will take a little time. Sunday night was a prime example of that, as he and Calipari said the big man couldn't even run the offense the right way.

"I couldn't get Oscar (Tshiebwe) to run the plays right. You know why? He hasn't been practicing with us," Calipari said. "So I said, Go to the baseline. 'We're going to play dribble drive around you.' And that's what we did the whole second half. I ran two plays. That were pass, pass, make a play. Couldn't run a play. Told them, 'man, you know, we got to practice and get together as a team and get better.'"

Luckily for the now 3-2 Cats, 26 games are left on the regular season docket. The time for development is now, as losses in November, while somewhat concerning, won't tell the full story come March.

Calipari told Big Blue Nation from the jump to have patience with his group, but that patience will dwindle down to nothing if that lack of effort that was touched on post-game continues to rear its head over the course of the campaign.

Game Recap of the loss to the Zags can be found here.

Takeaways from the Gonzaga loss can be found here.

Watch: Calipari speaks post-game after the defeat.

Game Notes on the loss can be found here.

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