‘We’re better than this,’ Calipari says after UCLA loss. Kentucky will have to prove it.

That it was even a game in the second half was a minor miracle for Kentucky.

In the end, it didn’t really matter.

The No. 13-ranked Wildcats suffered yet another loss to a big-name opponent — falling 63-53 to No. 16 UCLA in Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday — following a first half in which the Bruins nearly ran away from UK and forced John Calipari to make some drastic changes to his lineup.

When Oscar Tshiebwe stepped to the line to try and finish an and-one play with 14:26 left, a free throw that would have given Kentucky a 41-40 lead, it seemed an improbable scenario after everything that had come before it. And that advantage was never attained. Tshiebwe missed the shot, UCLA scored six straight points in less than a minute on the other end, and the Bruins held off the Wildcats down the stretch.

Kentucky fell to 7-3 on the season, those three losses coming to Michigan State, Gonzaga and UCLA, the only three teams the Cats have played that received any votes in the most recent Associated Press Top 25 poll.

This one was an especially brutal defeat.

After an even first few minutes in New York, the Bruins imposed their will on Kentucky, forcing several UK miscues and making eight of nine shots of their own in one spurt. At one point, the Cats went more than two and a half minutes without taking a single shot from the field, thanks to turnovers that had UCLA taking the ball in the other direction. By the time Antonio Reeves ended that miserable drought with a three-pointer, the Bruins had already built a 12-point lead.

Not long after that, Calipari subbed in Lance Ware to play alongside Tshiebwe, forming a two-big lineup, a drastic measure at a desperate time. And it actually worked.

Ware played a total of 13 minutes and 48 seconds consecutively over two halves from there, and Kentucky outscored UCLA 25-17 over that span. To start that second half, Calipari stuck with Ware in place of a struggling Jacob Toppin and played freshman Chris Livingston instead of senior guard Antonio Reeves. The combo — Ware and Livingston, with Sahvir Wheeler, Cason Wallace and Tshiebwe — provided a jolt, and UK turned an eight-point halftime deficit into a 38-all tie in a matter of minutes, with Livingston providing eight points in an 11-3 run out of the break.

“We needed toughness on the floor,” Calipari said. “When they started bullying us a little bit, the game slipped. And when you got those other two in there — that was kind of negated. I thought they played well.”

But Calipari went away from the strategy later in the second half, for reasons he didn’t fully explain afterward. He subbed Ware out with more than 12 minutes remaining, and the junior big man never returned. For the game, UCLA outscored Kentucky 46-28 when he wasn’t on the court.

Ware ended up with two points, five rebounds, three assists and a steal. Livingston led the Wildcats with a career-high 14 points in a career-high 24 minutes.

Pretty much everything else was a forgettable experience for a Kentucky team that expected to be in a much better position as it approaches the meat of its 2022-23 schedule.

UK again struggled from the free-throw line, going just 5-for-13 there. The Cats committed a season-high 18 turnovers, with 12 of those coming in the first half. After Reeves made that three to stop the skid midway through the first half, UK missed its next nine shots. And after Tshiebwe tied the game at 40-all early in the second half, the Cats missed 20 of 25 shots to close things out, including failing to connect on each of their last 11 attempts from the field.

Kentucky’s final points came with 4:31 left in the game. At the time, the Bruins’ lead was just 55-53.

“The only way you can learn about your team — mentally and physically — is in games like this,” Calipari said afterward.

That might be true, but he left the postgame podium with few, if any, solutions. And Kentucky clearly still has much to figure out more than a month into a season that began with the Cats ranked No. 4 nationally.

For all the talk of an improving offense, UK’s 53 points Saturday were a season low. Livingston was 5-for-8 from the floor. Wheeler was 5-for-7 (though he had six turnovers). Ware made his only shot. The other numbers were ugly. Tshiebwe was 4-for-12, Toppin was 2-for-10, and Reeves and Wallace both shot 2-for-13.

CJ Fredrick played just six minutes — didn’t see the court in the second half — and didn’t accumulate a single stat in the box score. Daimion Collins didn’t play at all.

Kentucky has games against Florida A&M, Missouri and Louisville — all unranked teams — to close out the calendar year, and then a remaining schedule that will include eight games against teams currently listed in the AP’s top 20. Something will have to change for UK to find success.

“You have to get mentally and physically tougher,” Calipari said. “You have to. You’re gonna be in wars every game. And, for us, it’s figuring out, all right, how are we doing this? With which group? Who is it?”

It’s a conundrum for Calipari to mull over the holidays.

“I haven’t lost any faith in the team. I’m disappointed right now,” he said. “… There’s a lotta things that I would say, ‘We’re better than this.’ But we’re gonna have to show it.”

Next game

Florida A&M at No. 13 Kentucky

What: Unity Series

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday

TV: SEC Network

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Florida A&M 2-7, Kentucky 7-3

Series: Kentucky leads 1-0

Last meeting: Kentucky won 96-76 on March 19, 2004, in the NCAA Tournament in Columbus, Ohio