Los Gatos en Cancun Derrotan a Vikingos

What a funny little tournament this is. Some quirky opponents. Ballroom converted to a gym. Fourth-tier television coverage. Late afternoon tip-off? Sure. Whatever.

Well, UK survived 13 first-half turnovers and a real fit of over-passing vs. Cleveland State. Seems to me that the Cats are far too willing to share at times. If you're open from 8 feet, and you try to force it to a teammate who has a slightly better look from 6 feet, what have you really accomplished?

Let's just say that some of the lob passes and interior hand-offs near the basket were a bit of overkill in the first 20 minutes. I'm not so sure that the Vikings held UK to 35 points so much as UK limited itself to that figure, mainly with some decidedly bizarre passing.

Not that I would rather have the opposite problem. No sir. A team of me-first gunners would be a far worse issue-- and much more difficult to correct. So yeah, it is a much better thing to have a group that seems to enjoy feeding the rock to one another. Of course with all of the squad's newcomers, the key will be in learning when the extra pass is really necessary, and using it only at those times.

Kentucky seemed a little more settled in the second half, but the game was itself was still rather chippy and foul-filled. (My DVR cut off after 2 hours, so I missed most of the aftermath of the Cousins altercation.) Apparently no real harm done there.

The Big Blue scoring attack was certainly spread out, with Patterson's minutes limited due to an apparently balky ankle. John Wall tallied 15, and Cousins 14. I'll say that it was nice to have Josh Harrellson contributing 5 points in 11 minutes of action. (Cal may have wanted another rebound or two.)

Defense looked maybe slightly little better today, with UK limiting State to 26.6% from the field. Not sure how good of a shooting team the Vikings normally are though-- certainly a lot of their attempts were chucks and heaves.

But hey: it's a 24-point victory for the Cats. The fans looked to to be having a blast. I would imagine this is a great trip for team-building and hopefully for UK notching another win, this time vs. a BCS-conference school tomorrow.