Is slow really the way to go for Kentucky basketball? We’ll soon find out.

Rip and run. That’s the modern game. Get the ball and go, the faster the better, that’s the way to play the game of basketball these days.

Enter John Calipari, Kentucky basketball coach, to throw up a stop sign.

“I’m mad at myself because we needed to be playing more deliberate,” Calipari said Saturday after his Wildcats’ 86-63 victory over archrival Louisville at Rupp Arena.

In his search for answers for his disappointing 2022-23 edition, Calipari has landed on his way-back machine. After starting the season saying he wanted his Cats to play fast, to push the ball up and down the floor, the coach has decided his team was playing too fast.

“We played deliberate, which is what my teams have done historically,” Calipari said, comparing UK’s pace of play Saturday to its previous dozen games. “We were running on makes and quickly getting into stuff. Well, guess what, that was killing Antonio (Reeves) and it was killing Chris Livingston because their minds were — we needed to be more deliberate.”

Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe (34) took advantage of his team’s more deliberate pace by scoring 24 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in Saturday’s win against Louisville.

A case can be made fast-and-free would suit first-year players such as Reeves, the transfer from Illinois State, or Livingston, a freshman. Don’t think, just run the floor.

“But I’ve got a different team,” Calipari said after UK’s 89-75 loss at Missouri last week and repeated during his Friday pregame press conference and Saturday’s postgame press conference. “I’ve got Oscar.”

That would be Oscar Tshiebwe, last year’s national player of the year who scored 24 points and grabbed 14 rebounds against the ‘Ville. Tshiebwe is something of a throwback himself, a low post player who likes to set up on the block and lives in part off putbacks off the glass.

Does a slower pace help Tshiebwe’s game?

“Absolutely,” Oscar said Saturday. “It makes the game easy.”

It also appeared to help Jacob Toppin, the senior forward who stacked a career-high 24 points on the Cardinals. Considered a major key to UK’s fortunes this season, Toppin had been unceremoniously replaced by Lance Ware in Cal’s starting lineup the last couple of games. Toppin had scored just nine points in the previous three games. His 13-minute stat line at Mizzou included three turnovers and zero points.

Back in the starting lineup Saturday, Toppin was more assertive. He drove to the basket early in the game. By halftime, he had scored 15 points. Toppin has been frank about how he has struggled to get his mind right. He needed a game like Saturday. So did his team.

There is one caveat about playing at a more deliberate pace. It puts more emphasis on execution. If you are going to play a half-court game, you have to execute the half-court game. That has not been a strong suit to this point. The Cats did execute Saturday, but did so against a Louisville team that under former UK assistant Kenny Payne entered the rivalry renewal 2-11 via record and No. 275 via KenPom ranking.

Kentucky’s Cason Wallace (22), who looks to pass the ball while guarded by Louisville’s Sydney Curry, contributed 17 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals to his team’s win Saturday.

Can Kentucky execute on a consistent basis against an SEC schedule that kicks into high gear when 12-1 LSU visits Rupp Arena on Tuesday night? Led by former Murray State coach Matt McMahon, the Tigers beat No. 9 Arkansas 60-57 last week in Baton Rouge.

On Friday, Calipari quizzed the media on the scores of his Final Four teams. Indeed, UK’s 2012 title team beat Rick Pitino and Louisville 69-61 in the national semifinals and Kansas 67-59 in the championship game. His 2014 team beat Wisconsin 74-73 in the Final Four. His 2015 team that finished 38-1 beat Notre Dame 68-66 in the Elite Eight before losing to Wisconsin 71-64 in the Final Four.

Those teams had the likes of Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, the Harrison twins and Devin Booker among others, however. I’m not sure I see that type of talent on the current roster. Not yet, anyway.

Still, Calipari appears to believe he has hit on the solution to his team’s problems. Deliberate will get it done. Slow is the way to go. We’ll see if he’s right.