Senior Night-mare

With its season seemingly on the line, Kentucky decided to mail it in vs. Georgia on Senior Night in Rupp Arena. I ask again: where is the pride? Where is the fight? Against a team that had absolutely nothing to play for in terms of NCAA tournament aspirations, a team that UK had soundly beaten in their house back in January -- giving up only 45 points total, mind you -- the Cats managed to bungle their way to a 90-85 defeat.

Once again, the Cats demonstrated a lack of basketball IQ and defensive intensity, which point to a team without chemistry and heart. After this loss, much as I hate to admit, there's a very good chance Kentucky might not win another game in 2009. It was just that demoralizing, especially given UK's gaudy all-time Senior Night record (83-5?) and the fact that the Bulldogs came into the game winless in road conference games and averaging only 60 points.

Goodness gracious, if you had told me Michael Porter would hit 5 treys on the evening and only turn it over twice, I would have bet the farm on a UK win. I suppose you have to credit Georgia for hitting 11 out of 16 of their own threes, but once again, far too many of those were absolutely wide-open looks. Kentucky was outrebounded 38-27 and missed a couple of clutch free throws down the stretch that really could have changed the game. Probably the most disheartening thing about those two developments is the fact that rebounding and the charity stripe were actually strengths of this squad earlier in the season.

Which leads to the inevitable conclusion that the Wildcats have honestly and truly gotten worse throughout the year. A fact.

Coach G's seat must be feeling awfully hot this morning, and rightfully so. At this time, I do not care to speculate on AD Mitch Barnhart making any change in the near future, the merits of which are up for debate. (And you can bet those merits are being debated hotly throughout Big Blue Nation as you read this.) His benching of 4 starters early in the second half backfired utterly and completely, and since it's easy to Monday-morning quarterback such things-- it was a seemingly desperate and ill-advised ploy by the Coach. Remember, UK had closed a pretty big gap to end the first half and had the locker-room momentum.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I've always said if you have a 10- or 12- player rotation (especially in March), that means you really have NO rotation. It is just impossible to spread that many minutes around and believe that you can get a coherent and cohesive effort from your team.

Therefore, UK currently looks both incoherent and incohesive.

Another real shame of this loss is that it spoiled what is normally a revered Wildcat tradition of sending out its seniors with a victory, while serving as a nice tune-up and confidence builder for the looming SEC tournament. Poor, oft-injured Jared Carter actually did his part, scoring a bucket and pulling down a board in 4 minutes of play after being honored pre-game and getting a spot in the starting five.

I'm no math or statistics whiz, but I figure this loss will absolutely crush UK's RPI rating, further denting whatever Big Dance hopes that had remained for the team, in terms of obtaining an at-large bid. A strong SEC tourney showing seems unlikely as well, after such a poor performance against a Georgia team which now sits 3-12 in conference.

Anybody got any quick-fix ideas? At this rate, I won't even need the Selection Sunday Maalox because UK's fate will already be decided.

photo credit: Courier-Journal/Jonathan Palmer