Monday Night Gumbo

Highlighting a weekend trip to Baton Rouge to view the Cats live and in person for only the second time this season....(I witnessed the Hartford game in Rupp back in December, notable only for J. Wall breaking the UK single-game assist record)....apparently, there was some kind of NFL football thing going on that had the local cajuns a little excited...

*You know Kentucky's off to a slow start when your son asks, "Dad, are they gonna get more than one today?" and you can tell he halfway means it.

*Catching the recorded version back at home this evening, it truly was hard to believe that about nine minutes into this one, UK had only a 12-10 lead. Considering the final score, I don't think the Tigers knew what hit them.

*It was nice that Perry Stevenson at least got some minutes (and a bucket), being a Lafayette native who undoubtedly had plenty of family and friends present at the game.

*Also present was one Durand "Rudy" Macklin, who had his jersey retired at halftime by LSU; Macklin gave a very nice speech that showed a true humility and grace--mentioning former teammates, coaches and of course, his parents. Class act. But it probably wouldn't have killed them to keep the house lights on for the ceremony, because the inadequate spotlights cast a very strange pall over the proceedings.

*Darius Miller turned in another uhhh...unremarkable performance. Put me in the VERY concerned camp here. 17 minutes, 1 shot? I like the 3 boards and 3 assists, but that's not what I think Cal is looking for from Mr. Miller. I'll leave it to the speculators to figure out what's going on there, but we all know that the former Mr. Basketball is severely underperforming.

*Also, I was not very impressed with Tas Mitchell on Saturday. Credit to Patrick Patterson and UK's team defense for keeping him off kilter, but usually a player of Mitchell's caliber will manage to "get his" even in blowouts, and yet he was held to only 10 on the day. The guy settled for a lot of threes.

*A fairly tepid crowd IMO at the Maravich Assembly Center. The students did manufacture a bit of spirit with the random assortment of large craniums and a couple of crazy costumes. But you can tell that's a football school. Even with the early lead, you could sense the Bayou faithful weren't really buying in...and given their team's winless conference record, it's tough to blame them.

*Big Blue, on the other hand, always manages to get into the building, doesn't it? And Big Blue makes its presence felt. Road games, conference road games, neutral site, tournament, no matter. I figure if the university scheduled the Martian All-Stars to a home-and-home, the UK faithful would fill at least 20% of the Red Planet Coliseum. (And probably gripe about the drink prices.)

*The Mike the Tiger exhibit was very cool. Gotta give credit there. Money well spent to give your school's live mascot a sweet place to hang out and be seen by the fans. Mike was actually up and pacing around for a change, really showing off and relishing his own tigerness. And honestly overall, the LSU fans were quite nice to me. Again, I hear football would be a much different story.

*I hate to say it, but it looked like Wall could have been called for traveling on that behind the back layup move. However, that's one of those calls that superstars are never whistled on, and who knows what's traveling anymore these days? One-two-shuffle-step and jump? It was a beautiful and creative basketball play regardless. And Mr. Wall has a penchant for those.

*Big Cuz remains the Eighth Wonder this season. Just a massive guy that has agility and coordination that is so uncommon. That little flying tip-in was amazing. I think Trent Johnson's team was more than a little awestruck by DeMarcus. Well, it was either that, or Bobby C's beard.....both are true forces of nature.

*And finally, I also reviewed the tape that the refs were checking out when DeMarcus inadvertently clocked (insert random LSU player name here) on a rebound. I saw nothing intentional at all, and figured those Arcadians wouldn't have such a big issue with a little "elbeaux."

GO CATS!