Tebow Scoreless in Florida Loss

Kentucky left Florida with its second true road win of the season, defeating the Gators 89-77. The Cats moved to 2-0 in conference play, with a trip to Auburn slated for Saturday.

It was a fairly balanced Kentucky attack. 25 for Bledsoe (a career high). 19 for Wall (what a freshman backcourt! Never gets old.) 15 solid points for Patterson and a mostly quiet 13 for Cousins.

Really, I thought Florida shot themselves out of this one. I can understand the thinking that you simply need to make the 3's rain on UK in order to have a good chance at winning....but man, Billy D had those guys launching from 23-25 feet consistently. Like that was the plan. And you don't get any extra style points for those, people. Just a lot of crazy, short possession 3-point shots for the Gators that I could not make much sense of strategically.

Granted, Florida did come out pretty hot at first, and when Tyus made an early bomb, I guess they thought it might be their night. But that would be like Kentucky getting excited because, oh say, Perry Stevenson hit an early trey. A certain former UK coach would call that "fool's gold."

Now I absolutely loved the fact that with the score tied at 72, the Cats went to Patrick Patterson and he came up with a hoop and the harm. And this was one of the rare times where a missed free throw was a blessing, leading to a 5-point trip that more or less sealed the game. Midway through the season, UK still tends to forget about Pat at times, although it's tough to argue with undefeated results.

Also loved the continuing variety of lob plays that Cal runs for John Wall. That type of thing really takes the air out of the competition, IMHO. Has to be demoralizing when you're defending an out of bounds play or coming out of a timeout-- and Kentucky looks like they're trying to just get into their offensive set-- but then you see Wall streaking the baseline and rising for a thunder jam in your grill off of a super sweet pass. Yeah, that never gets old either.

Now, can we do something about all these missed chip shots early in games? UK's big men seem to make a real job out of hitting a lot of simple put-backs and layups that should normally be very high-percentage shots. I can't really explain that one; maybe they're just too amped, or get in a big hurry at the outset. Kentucky hasn't really lacked for points in the paint this year, but making some of those bunnies would really change the complexion of things as conference play rolls on. If you can make enough 2-footers, you don't have to make as many 18-footers, right?

But the beat goes on for the Wildcats, with Dick Vitale and Erin Andrews (sigh) there to see it in person. The perfection continues.