No. 19 Kentucky eases past Portland 74-46

• Alex Poythress and Archie Goodwin each scored 15 points for the Wildcats

University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari said himself that Camp Cal won't be an overnight fix-all for a flawed young team, but after just two days of his drill-sergeant act the Wildcats did show some immediate signs of progress against Portland.

Kentucky led comfortably the entire game and dropped the hammer late, punctuated by a pair of high-flying, highlight-reel slams from freshman guard Archie Goodwin. The Cats cruised to a 74-46 victory.

"We got better," Calipari said, "but we're still a ways away, folks. We're still doing the same things, only a little bit better than we were doing them."

The team's inability to finish strong in their last outing against Samford prompted Calipari's new early-morning boot camp. That message, at least, was received. When the Pilots (3-6) cut into a 15-point halftime lead with a 7-0 run, UK (6-3) answered with a 9-0 burst and led 48-29 with 11:30 to go. The Cats closed with a 21-6 run.

"In a normal college game, if you have two teams fighting, one team will hang around for the half (but) about the 12-minute mark, 11-minute mark, 10-minute mark, they'll let go of the rope," Calipari said. "That's been us, the team that let go."

Not this time. Powered by 15 points apiece from Goodwin and fellow freshman Alex Poythress – Goodwin also had eight rebounds and four assists, while Poythress had six rebounds and two blocks – Kentucky kept its foot on the gas.

Sophomores Kyle Wiltjer and Ryan Harrow, who were expected in the preseason to be vital cogs in Calipari's annually refurbished machine, both broke out of ugly shooting slumps Saturday. Freshman center Nerlens Noel, limping noticeably because of a lower-leg bruise, played through pain and produced another healthy stat line: seven points, nine rebounds, seven blocks.

Afterward, Calipari posited that there are eight or 10 teams better than all the rest in the country every year – a group which represents the only real national title contenders – and that the Cats could eventually be one of them. Right now, though, he'd put them in the 50 to 100 range. He said they could just as easily be an NIT team. So Calipari asked them: "Which team do you want to be? What are you willing to do to be one of those eight or 10 teams?"

Surviving Camp Cal, which adds daily 7 a.m. conditioning and nighttime shooting to the normal afternoon practice routine, is a good start. And camp is about to get even tougher. After next week's final exams and a Saturday game against Lipscomb, UK players won't have class to worry about for two weeks. And only a pair of Saturday games to interrupt practice.

"I can't wait," Calipari said. "We'll be going at least five of the days (in between) three times a day. I'll be exhausted, but what the heck? The whole point is to help these young people think differently."

Getting Wiltjer and Harrow to play better helps, too.

Wiltjer, a Portland native who entered on a 4-for-27 skid beyond the arc, pumped his fist when his first 3-pointer dropped against the Pilots. He hit 5 of 8 field goals and had 12 points. He got loud cheers for each of his three rebounds, too.

"(Fans) acted like he had 12," Calipari said. "But he got three in traffic that they hadn't seen in eight games. Well, that's what we've been doing in practice."

Lately, when Witljer and Harrow fail to fight for loose balls, they sit. When they don't defend, they sit. Harrow did less sitting Saturday than he has all year.

His 25 minutes, eight points, six assists and four rebounds were each season highs – with just one turnover. When Harrow hounded a Portland player all the way up the court and picked his pocket as he crossed the center line, Calipari smiled.

"That's what he's looking for," Harrow said. "Coach Cal always says that's the hard thing to do, so everybody tries to go around doing the hard thing. This is kind of new for me, playing defense hard all the time."

Harrow, who missed four games with a mystery illness and subsequent family issue, started 1 for 4 from the field Saturday to bring his season tally to 4 for 23. But then he swished a pull-up jumper on the baseline and rattled in a 3-pointer in quick succession to ignite UK's closing kick.

But Camp Cal has just begun, as has the process of turning a team with six new major contributors – including four freshmen – into an efficient group that gets what it takes.

"All these guys are guys who every coached probably bowed down to them and let them do everything they wanted to do," said senior Julius Mays, who had 13 points Saturday. "So you come here and you've got a guy who's telling you, 'You ain't nothing; I've seen bettern than you,' on a daily basis. It can be tough … but he's only trying to bring the best out of them."

Kyle Tucker also writes for the Courier-Journal