LEXINGTON, Ky. – Talk may be cheap. Silence, however, can be costly.
To hear the Kentucky Wildcats tell it, the defensive woes made manifest while Duke was scoring 118 points in the season opener were largely attributable to a verbal vacuum. As Strother Martin told Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke,” what we had here was a failure to communicate.
“Early in the season we weren’t talking at all,” P.J. Washington said Tuesday night, “and our defense showed it.”
That was then. This is wow.
Tuesday’s 76-55 victory over No. 22 Mississippi State was Kentucky’s fifth straight Southeastern Conference victory and marked the third time in 11 days that an opponent of the Wildcats had set or equaled its season-low point total.