Absorbing A Second Loss

All right, so I gave it a full day (and a half), trying to simmer down a little. Had myself a pretty decent weekend otherwise, the weather was great, had some fun with the family and all that stuff. Took a virtual chill pill. But I gotta say I'm still a little peeved about the Cats losing to Tennessee.

Mainly because it was Tennessee, I guess.

Objectively, there's not a whole lot to be ashamed about, losing to the 19th ranked team in the country on their home floor-- a team that had knocked off #1 Kansas earlier in the season. And sure, UK was coming off the quick turnaround of late Thursday to early Saturday, having avenged their only previous loss of the season to the "other" USC.

But man, you have got to show up a little better than that if you're Kentucky. No excuses. Potential clincher for the conference title on the line. National CBS coverage. On a day that the #1 Jayhawks took another "L" themselves. You knew that Knoxville was gonna be extremely hostile and the Sweaty One, Bruce Pearl, would be pulling out all the stops, including but not limited to, the day-glo sportscoat.

You just can't dig that deep of a first-half hole for yourself. That would be the main takeaway from this one. A certain former UK coach used to say, "When you lose, don't lose the lesson." And we all know how young these Wildcats are, but they must recognize that it is imperative to keep a team from running away from you to that extent. Nobody's 19 points better than UK this year.

So even when you can't buy a shot and aren't catching any breaks, you have too find a way to keep things reasonable on the scoreboard, confident that you will eventually make a run and get back into it.

And certainly, I was encouraged that the Cats did just that. They clawed right back and managed to tie it. They showed some grit and intensity in the second half. Absolutely. But they left themselves no margin for error... and in classic SEC rival form, a native of the Commonwealth makes the big shot to seal the deal against UK. Take a bow, Mr. Hopson. Now go jump in whatever the heck that river is that runs by your orange-infested campus.

Now seriously, am I apoplectic over this setback? Hardly. Some might even argue that this was a good loss that will sharpen the team's focus as the calendar turns to March. (Try telling it to Dan-O...."good loss" Ha!) But I was disappointed that at this stage, UK tried to simply mail it in, especially defensively. Way too much matador action yesterday. Mildly disturbing.

Must.... chill.....27-2......#1 seed still in sight...