Jaland Lowe stresses importance of getting off to quicker starts ahead of Missouri game

Especially against high-major opponents, Kentucky has struggled with hitting the hardwood running this season.

You might have already seen this stat floating around, but Mark Pope‘s squad has trailed by 20 or more points in four of the Wildcats’ six games this season against ranked foes. The most recent example of this came on Saturday in Tuscaloosa, when Kentucky dug itself into a 21-point hole down the stretch of the opening half against Alabama. UK closed that gap to as few as nine points in the second half before ultimately losing by 15.

Slow starts and large deficits continue to be a trend for Pope’s tenure in Lexington. Kentucky has been able to make some — not all — of those games competitive near the end, but none have resulted in full-on comeback wins so far this season. Even against a couple of the low-major opponents, UK has struggled to find an immediate rhythm before getting going late.

A change in the starting lineup — something the fan base is practically begging for at this point — could certainly help buck that trend. Not starting Jaland Lowe (the only pure point guard on the roster) or Jayden Quaintance (a future NBA lottery pick) makes less and less sense with the passing of every game, although Lowe didn’t seem too worried about whether he starts or not during his interview with the media on Tuesday.

We should note that Kentucky was not expected to go on the road and beat Alabama, arguably the best team in the SEC, in the conference-opener, but the ‘Cats will be expected to win Wednesday’s home game against Missouri. Another slow start could prove dangerous against a Mizzou team that shoots the ball well. Lowe stressed the importance of quicker starts in his talks with local reporters.

“I feel like that’s very important,” Lowe said. “We’ve started off slow in a lot of our games, so setting that tone early at a home game, especially versus Missouri coming off a win versus Florida is very important. That’s just something that we’ve got to find. That’s important right now, but we’ve also got to sustain that for the full rest of the game.”

It’s both the offensive and defensive side of the floor where Kentucky has struggled to be fully locked in from the opening tip. Mental lapses on defense have become far too common, as have stagnant offensive starts. That’s not exactly a great sign now that we’re already in league play. But plenty of injuries haven’t helped build continuity, and there are plenty of games left on the schedule for everyone to get on the same page.

Something has to change soon, though. There needs to be an added sense of urgency. A repeat of what happened against Alabama — when Kentucky was down double-digits midway through the first half — when Missouri comes to town could easily send this group into an 0-2 start in the SEC.

“Missouri’s very physical. Their length is really good at each position. In order to beat them we’re going to have to be able to knock down shots, we’re going to have to be able to attack, draw fouls, and then be able to guard the whole game,” Lowe said. “From the tipoff to the last buzzer, we got to be able to guard the entire game and have no lapses of getting down too big and having to fight back. I feel like we’ve got to figure out a situation where we’re at least within a five-point game the entire time — or we have the lead, I would love that. We just gotta be able to find a way to fight the entire game.”

That last sentence, in itself, is a bit of an alarm bell. The desire to fight should not be an issue at this stage in the season. It should be a natural tendency for a group of high-major basketball players. We’ll see if they can flip that switch for good beginning on Wednesday against the Tigers.

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