Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Early Season Thriller


I kind of like the idea of an overtime game in November for this UK team. Credit to Stanford for playing a very smart 45 minutes, with the game obviously much closer than the final, 8-point differential would indicate. So yeah, call me crazy, but I truly prefer a close one in this Cancun final rather than a Big Blue blowout. Keeps 'em humble.

The idea with these early tournaments is after all, to get players comfortable with one another, and in Kentucky's case, with the new coach and system. Well, the Cats looked anything but comfortable throughout most of this game. A lot of that was due to a very effective zone by the Cardinal, which UK had tremendous difficulty in solving. The early foul trouble for Patrick Patterson also contributed to the Wildcats falling behind in the first half.

In fact, if Landry Fields had not cooled off considerably in the second frame, UK could well have been looking at its first loss of the season. But taken along with the Miami game, at least Cal's Cats are learning how to pull out some close ones. Big props to Ramon Harris for coming up with some crucial boards and loose balls down the stretch, along with Bledsoe's 3-point dagger late, and of course Wall's clutch free throws to even send the game to OT.

I didn't think either of these matchups south of the border would get my heart going, but I truly had some jitters tonight that are normally reserved for games a little further down the schedule.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

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.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Rider Remarks


Honestly, I'm still just a little giddy from yesterday. Very enjoyable sports day in the Kingdom of Blue.

Real quick, I just want to remind everyone to add Georgia quarterback Joe Cox to your Christmas card list, since I know a lot of you people jump on that stuff right after Thanksgiving. Poor Joe.

Anyway, I did want to throw a few thoughts out regarding the basketball game. It was every bit as fun as the win between the hedges, without all of the nail-biting and drama. UK threw a decent beatdown on Rider that bodes well for their trip to Cancun.

John Wall looked like he had a little extra bounce out there, although the guy probably eats bounce for breakfast. I really loved the 11 assists, and note that he got all of his 21 points the old fashioned way (no 3-pointers). Mr. Wall is one of those sneaky-quick guys too. I mean, everybody knows he's quick, but he makes it look so easy, and he has that glide to his game that gives it a little... deceptiveness... when he starts to make a move. That unstoppable hesitation dribble ought to be illegal for a guy as ath-a-letic as John Wall. Hardly fair.

Great game for Orton, too. Jeez, these freshmen! Orton had 14 of course, on 5 of 7 shooting and looked more comfortable than I've seen him in limited viewing this season. He still seems kind of boyish to me, I dunno. Am I crazy? He's a big guy, but looks like he's literally still growing into his Nikes and his Kentucky jersey. Maybe he'll be 7'4" by March. Regardless, I liked how he handled himself against the Broncs for the most part. He's a very important piece.

Quick turnaround for the team, in the midst of a multiple game stretch over this end-of-November time span. Really, I keep marveling at the overall talent upgrade that Cal was able to pull off and can't wait to see them on the court again. Next game, please! Not all of them are going to be 30-point wins, but my goodness these Cats are awfully easy on the eyes when they can get out and run.

Thanks for reading.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Football Cats Get Seventh Win


You're damn right I'm putting up two blog posts in the same day. It's just a little rule that I have whenever UK's football team beats Georgia in Athens. And seeing as how that hasn't happened since, uh, well, since way before my wife got caught up into teenage vampire dramas, I figure what the heck.

So you watched it, no doubt, or have seen the game highlights. You know about Randall Cobb playing through shoulder issues. You saw Georgia cough it up repeatedly. You jumped off the couch like me when Locke broke that screen pass and took it to the house. And you were most definitely nervous when the Bulldogs drove it down inside the Kentucky 5-yard line with a chance to tie.

But it really seemed like Georgia just didn't want to prevail. Obviously not in a literal sense....but man....on a Senior Night, in a week where their beloved mascot UGA VII passed away (no jokes here, I truly am a dog person), with Coach Mark Richt feeling some intense heat...just a pretty sloppy performance from what is normally a true SEC East powerhouse.

But let's not make this about the G-men. No, sir. We credit Rich Brooks and a great effort from his own seniors and stout underclassmen. That was a well-deserved road win by an opportunistic group of Cats. They took enough advantage of the fumbles, interceptions, and other assorted miscues to finally put the game away.

We shall give basketball a little love tomorrow, but tonight...take a bow 2009 footballers. Congrats on win #7.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Will The Rain of Allmonds Continue?





The Big Blue blogosphere has been full of dismay regarding UK's 3-point defense over the last couple of games. As you know, the Cats have given up a total of 19 treys in the last two games...to TWO PLAYERS.

Corey Allmond in particular had a career vs. the Wildcats, notching a Rupp Arena-record 11 three-pointers on Thursday. This comes on the heels of Miami's Nick Winbush tallying 8 of 10 himself in the previous game.

So what gives? Will this assault continue as UK takes on Rider this afternoon?

Well, you can bet that Cal is working on it. And there are several reasons why the threes have been raining on UK thus far:

1.) Poor switching on the perimeter. Players need to learn to SHOUT at each other, if that's what it takes, in order to communicate switches.

2.) Not closing quickly enough. When teams penetrate, there are going to be some spacing issues all over the floor. UK must learn to charge hard at the open jump shooter and not just lazily, leisurely try to close the gap.

3.) Hands up. All the time. Simply keep those long arms extended and make a special effort to distract the shooter and get a hand in his line of vision towards the target.

4.) More respect. Especially in the case of known sharpshooters like Mr. Allmond, players need to just...stick with the guy. There are certain folks on the opposing roster that require that type of attention and effort, even 20 feet from the basket.

5.) Desire. When it comes down to it, defense (like rebounding) is mostly about desire. Hunger. Having as much pride in stopping your man as in beating your man off the dribble on the other end.

Surely there are other more complex factors in consideration, not to mention the relative youth wearing blue this season, but I trust that the Cats will improve on the perimeter, sooner rather than later.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

John Wall's Cape Size?


I'm guessing Mr. Wall is about a 44 long, and looking at the highlights he was speeding down Rupp Arena's hardwood faster than a speeding bullet last night, before the draining the "stop and pop" game-winner vs. Miami OH.

What a huge shot for the freshman, and a nice escape for the Cats in a very tough early season game. Looking at the stats, you can't expect many opponents to shoot that well from three-point land throughout the season, and this scenario makes for a great teaching tool for Coach Cal: UK manages to win while learning that they must bring tremendous defensive effort every night, regardless of the opponent.

image from capedwonder.com

Monday, November 16, 2009

Let The Day Begin

There have been tons of "debuts" and "firsts" for the Calipari era, and tonight represents the beginning of what will probably be a very short Kentucky career for John Wall, with UK taking on Miami, OH. All Kentucky fans can hope for is that Wall's one-and-done brings some significant hardware to Lexington.

So here's to you John Wall, and here's to you Tim in Columbus....

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Call:

Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Time Is At Hand...


...and I have time on my mind. Perhaps that's due to the annual "fall back" of daylight savings last weekend. Lord knows an extra hour of sleep never hurt anybody. But more likely it's the heated anticipation of the very promising basketball season that lies ahead for us Kentucky fans and followers.

Not coincidentally, one of the more intriguing aspects of this season will rest upon the very concept of time itself. Specifically, playing time.

I would expect that any blue-blooded UK fan is going to have an opinion regarding playing time: Who's starting? Who's the sixth man? Who's buried at the end of the bench? Who should be seeing more of the court?

So consider one of Dan-O's favorite activities-- a little game of boxscore observation that I like to call "adding up the minutes."

The math is simple. A college basketball game runs two, 20-minute halves. (Barring overtime of course.) And with 5 players on the court at all times, that means John Calipari is going to have 200 minutes per game to divvy up amongst his players as he best sees fit.

Personally, I don't think there's any way that Patrick Patterson falls to much less than the 35 minute range. (Note: all estimates disregard the very real possibilities of injury and/or foul trouble. So just buckle up and play along.) Furthermore, Mr. John Wall should be putting in 35 minutes. Every. Single. Night. Basically those two guys figure to have one frontcourt and one backcourt spot on permanent lockdown for the entire season. November through (hopefully) April.

You give those two studs the occasional breather. Maybe you have to pull them for some specific tactical instruction-- again, only occasionally. They are by most accounts two singular talents, All-SEC if not All-American level projections.

Now personally, I think Eric Bledsoe is going to get the most minutes at the other guard spot. He's a freshman, like Wall, and he's going to be raw and learning throughout the season. But probably too good to keep off the floor much. And Sophomore Darius Miller is listed on my roster as a guard as well, although I think of him more as a "three". (He's 6-7/223). But I figure those guys are both good for 25-30 minutes per game in Coach Cal's system, given their skills and potential. In the spirit of this exercise, we will call it 27.5 per game for each of them.

Likewise, I figure the freshman tandem of Cousins and Orton (the poor man's Twin Towers?) are looking at 20-25 minutes a piece on the blocks. Perhaps this is optimistic. Maybe the DDMO won't fit their closer to 7-foot frames, or they have trouble adapting to the college competition. Cal has warned us that he won't be able to "hide" anybody in his system. But again, moving along, I'm going to pencil them each at 22.5 mpg.

Obviously, that's 6 players, and not all of them can start. We'll set that aside since Coach Bolus always said starting is overrated. So looking at my abacus, that would quickly get us to a total of 170 minutes out of Kentucky's 200 total.

Which is where it gets really interesting. You've only got a half hour, a mere sitcom's span of time remaining, to split between Hood/Harrellson/Liggins/Dodson, not to mention the team's two seniors, Ramon Harris and Perry Stevenson. (No offense intended to Mark Krebs.)

But think about it. Jon Hood was only Kentucky's prep Mr. Basketball last year. Dodson had 19 points to lead the team in the Campbellsville exhibition. Harrellson is allegedly shaping up to be a legitimate perimeter shooting threat. Stevenson would start for a LOT of D-1 teams. And so on.

Is it a nice problem to have, trying to split up 200 minutes amongst the available talent? You bet it is. And surely this little parlor game is not going to play out exactly as I've drawn it up.

There will be times where the rotation is overly tight against any given opponent due to matchups. I would also expect there will be blowouts where everybody gets in on the fun. Maybe a player or two comes down with the dreaded swine flu at some point.

Thus there are plenty of alternate scenarios to chew on, and I'm not sure what exactly we will be able to take away from an opponent the likes of Clarion. (Over/under on Patterson jams vs. John Calipari's alma mater: 6.)

We already know Bledsoe is probably out with an ankle injury for Friday night, and we also know that Wall is going to miss the opener vs. Morehead St. Plus, DeAndre Liggins tallied ZERO minutes against Campbellsville, apparently at Cal's discretion entirely-- and Cal has hinted that he is not ruling out further benchings of anyone on the roster, as necessary.

Which leads me to conclude that playing time figures to be a hot topic all the way through to spring time.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

A Halloween Nightmare


No, I'm not referring to the football game vs. Mississippi State, painful though it was.

Instead, consider this scenario, dateline Lexington:

BLUE DEFEATS WHITE 55-48

Ramon Harris netted 15 points for the Blue team yesterday afternoon in Memorial Coliseum, leading all scorers in UK's intrasquad scrimmage. Harris also chipped in seven rebounds in a very sloppy pre-season effort attended by approximately 4500 fans and students.

Head Coach Billy Gillispie lauded Harris' toughness in getting to the glass, noting, "Ramon picked up a lot of those baskets on putbacks and second effort plays. He was really a fighter today, very gritty in the paint." The Cats will need plenty of production from Harris this season after the departures of Patrick Patterson and Jodie Meeks to the NBA.

There was little buzz leading up to the scrimmage, with most fans focused on UK's so-called "blackout" at Commonwealth Stadium last night vs. MSU. It seemed the majority of Big Blue fans preferred the tailgating scene rather than taking an early season look at Gillispie's squad. Most prognosticators have UK's hoops team penciled in towards the bottom of the SEC East.

Perry Stevenson and Josh Harrellson battled to a draw opposite one another in the post, netting 10 points each for the blue and white squads respectively. Both seemed a bit sluggish, perhaps due to the added bulk they were instructed to pack on during the summer. "Yeah, Coach had us focused on the weight room quite a bit this offseason," said Harrellson, "Personally, I hope to be pushing 280 by December. And believe me, I need every bit of it going up against (Matt) Pilgrim in practice."

Gillispie seemed especially impressed with the play of the White team's lead guard Landon Slone. "Landon was all over the place, scrapping for loose balls, taking charges. He does everything we ask of him, and I really look for him to see a lot of playing time, not just early, but in conference play as well." Slone did manage four points, three steals and three assists to go along with his 7 turnovers.

Many have wondered where the scoring might come from this season, noting it will be difficult to replace the nearly automatic 40 points or so per game that Meeks and Patterson tallied. Gillispie seemed to look largely to the backcourt, where true freshman Jon Hood appeared to be aggressive in taking the ball to the basket, and Darius Miller displayed a variety of drives and pull-up jumpers out of several disorganized-looking offensive sets.

The team also seemed notably lacking in athleticism without its NBA-bound stars, not to mention the transfer of long, lightning-quick DeAndre Liggins. The 6-6/202 sophomore to-be is sitting out this season as per NCAA regulations concerning his jump back to his home state of Illinois, where he will be playing for a different set of Wildcats, at Northwestern.

Michael Porter had 12 points for the white squad on 4 of 14 shooting from the three-point line.

Jack O'Lantern photo courtesy of "Riv"on Flickr.