MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Rick Pitino playing coach and referee? Isn't that kind of like Howard Stern playing disc jockey and censor?
It's a bit hard to imagine. Nevertheless, University of Kentucky basketball players insist that this week Pitino, the coach last seen being ejected for cursing an official at Rupp Arena, could be found at Memorial Coliseum playing the role of referee during his team's practices.
''We get in foul trouble in games because we do it in practice,'' Kentucky guard Anthony Epps said. ''He was trying to clean that up.''
Pitino apparently had plenty to work with. Kentucky players described the practices following the regular-season-ending loss to South Carolina as intense - so intense that sophomore forward Scott Padgett made a trip to the emergency room to get stitches over his left eye.
There were rumors that Padgett and freshman Jamaal Magloire got in a fight during Tuesday's practice. But Kentucky assistant sports information director Brooks Downing said ''about 10 stitches'' over Padgett's eye resulted from an ''unintentional'' elbow.
''He's going to play,'' Downing said Thursday.
The first test of Padgett's stitches, Pitino's ''How To Avoid Fouling'' clinic and a new starting lineup - sophomore Wayne Turner replacing Epps at point guard and fifth-year senior Jared Prickett at center instead of Magloire - will come tonight at 7:30 EST when No. 6 Kentucky opens postseason play with a Southeastern Conference Tournament game against Auburn (7:30 p.m., Channel 64).
The Wildcats (27-4, 13-3) had a first-round bye.
If Kentucky wins, it will return to The Pyramid Saturday for a 1 p.m. semifinal game against the winner of Friday's Mississippi-Vanderbilt game.
To live up to their high hopes for the postseason, the Wildcats want to change two troublesome trends: poorer shooting and increased fouling.
In their final two regular-season games, against Tennessee and South Carolina, the Wildcats shot 37.6 percent from the floor. In Sunday's loss to South Carolina, they made a season-low 32.4 percent (23-of-71).
The problem, Pitino says, isn't a sudden loss of shooting touch by a team that led the SEC in regular-season accuracy (46.7 percent). It's simply bad shot selection.
''We lost (to South Carolina) because we flat out took some challenged shots,'' he said.
Pitino wants his players to make more passes, work for better shots. He hopes starting Prickett will help accomplish that.
In its first 29 games, Kentucky averaged 19.8 fouls a game. In its past two, Kentucky was called for 57 fouls. It had four players foul out and one coach ejected.
Pitino wasn't around for the final 0:00.4 of the regular season. He was given a flagrant technical foul, which comes with an automatic ejection, after saying a word that even Stern wouldn't try to get on the air.
South Carolina finished off the 72-66 victory by shooting four foul shots, giving it 44 for the game, compared with 15 for Kentucky.
After the game, Pitino said the eruption was more about the officiating during the final three games than what happened in the final seconds.
''I'm a little tired of certain things in the last three,'' he said. ''My frustrations have been building up.''
The next day, though, Pitino apologized for the outburst. He also began approaching the foul problem from a different angle.
Part of the differential in the loss to South Carolina can be traced to the style of play: The Wildcats pressed; the Gamecocks sat back in a zone.
''There were about 17, 18 little fouls that were called,'' Pitino said on his weekly radio show. ''And if it's going to be called extremely tight, Kentucky's in trouble.''
So Pitino began calling more of the fouls in practice, pointing out what his players can and can't get away with.
''We need to keep being aggressive,'' Prickett said, ''but we've got to stop making the silly fouls.''
SEC Tournament stories
CATS START TOURNEY AS PAPER TIGERS March 6, 1997
CATS HAVE NINE LINEUPS March 5, 1997
SEC FINAL: UK-CAROLINA? March 3, 1997
