By Keith Taylor
Special to NKyTribune
Speed kills and De’Aaron Fox buried Asbury with his quickness Sunday night.
The freshman guard scored 25 points to lead eight players in double figures in a 156-63 rout of the Eagles in second-ranked Kentucky’s final exhibition game of the season. Using his speed to attack Asbury’s press, Fox made 11-of-14 shots from the field — most of them layups in transition — dished out four assists and collected four steals in 17 minutes on the court.
As he did numerous times in high school, Fox knew how to counter the opposing defense.
“When teams press and try to pick me up full court and bring another person, you honestly just attack,” Fox said afterward. “Some people say pass through the press, but (coach John Calipari) always told us our best press attack is our speed. Sometimes you don’t have to pass. Sometimes you just dribble through and throw a lob and get a layup, so that’s what we did.”
Behind Fox, the Wildcats dominated the Eagles in all phases of the game, especially in transition. Kentucky forced 24 turnovers, scored 33 points off those miscues and tallied 116 points in the paint.
BOXSCORE: Kentucky 156, Asbury 63
“When a team presses like that — any team that presses, not just this one, they give up a lot of points in the paint just because they’re getting up and down,” Fox said. “They don’t care if you score. They’re just going to come right back just as fast.”
Playing into Asbury’s hand, the Wildcats led 88-25 at halftime and led by triple-digits, including a 102-point advantage with nine minutes remaining. It marked the first time in his career Fox has been part of such a lop-sided margin.
“I’ve never done it before,” Fox said. “I’m 95-percent sure nobody on this team has done it, but we did it and we’re not thinking too much about it.”
Fox admitted the Wildcats were aware of the score, but didn’t make it a point of emphasis to beat the Eagles by 93 points or even hold such a commanding lead.
“Any type of game, we look at the scoreboard,” he said. “We said something about it, but it wasn’t our goal. It just kind of happened.”
Kentucky shot a blistering 69 percent from the field and finished with 29 slam dunks, including two rim-rattlers by Fox that displayed his athleticism around the basket. Fox enjoyed the slam dunks, but knows such plays will be limited in the future.
“It’s fun, but we’re not really getting better like that,” Fox said. “We put up a lot of points today and I didn’t realize we dunked the ball that much. I got hung on a dunk. That’s what I remember. But it happened and it’s just time to move on.”
Fox and the Wildcats expect more competition in practice this week leading up to Friday’s season-opener against Stephen F. Austin and expects them to be more intense as the team delves deeper into the regular season.
“Honestly, most of our practices are going to be harder than the games,” he said. “I just think a lot of games this year practice will probably be harder than that just because of the competition and the intensity of the practices.”
Although the Wildcats hit the century mark in both of their exhibition games, Fox said the team still has to “work on everything,” especially on the defensive end of the court.
“We’re still getting better as players, as teammates,” Fox said. “Defensively, we’re probably not still where we (need to be), whether it’s on the ball, help defense, just because we’re young and sometimes guys just get lazy on a play. It’s a long shot clock. So we’re trying to mature as players really, really fast. We’re still 18, 19 years old. Our oldest players are like Mike (Mulder) and Derek (Willis) but there’s not too many of them. So we’re still just jelling together.”
Game tracker: Stephen F. Austin at Kentucky, Friday, 7 p.m. TV/Radio: SEC Network, 98.1 WBUL.
Keith Taylor is a senior sports writer for KyForward, where he primarily covers University of Kentucky sports. Reach him at keith.taylor@kyforward.com or @keithtaylor21 on Twitter