Cats Lock Down Gators

We could discuss the home winning streak this evening. It's quite pleasant.

Or we could talk about Darius Miller elevating his game and tallying a new career high of 24 points. Peachy.

We could even expound upon Brandon Knight playing 37 minutes without a single turnover. Swelleriffic.

But instead, we're going to chat about intangibles. Just briefly.

Things like effort.

Desire.

Dare I say...pride?

This Kentucky team has taken its lumps away from home, absolutely. They've been criticized for failure to execute in late game situations. Fairly so.

Their coach, the one who just notched his 500th career win, has seen a bit of heat coming his way for how his squad has allowed the close ones to slip away this season, again and again.

But I saw another flicker this afternoon. A brief suggestion. The slightest hint of an inkling of a possibility that these Cats could really make the leap going into the second season, the one that truly matters. The one where they give out trophies.

Because that was a pretty darn good Florida team. And yeah, they have a couple of conference losses already, and they are in the middle of a road swing, but still....the Gators came in ranked #13. Legitimately. Plenty of talent on that side.

And UK absolutely imposed its will on Donovan and Co. when it mattered. The boys in Blue put on a little run-- a team run, featuring none other than our much-maligned Darius Miller--that Florida could not answer.

Kentucky looked confident. They looked well-coached. They looked aggressive. Everything you would want from a team aspiring to peak as it heads toward the post-season.

So I'm going to relish this one for a bit. Give me Sunday at least. Vandy awaits on Tuesday, but that one's in the friendly confines as well.

It's just heartening to see once more that UK absolutely can beat quality teams when it plays a smart brand of basketball with full effort and initiative. I just like it when they play HARD, and they really did it today, like a Kentucky team should.

An Exclusive Interview With Winston Bennett's Jheri Curl

In an effort to lighten things up around here, I'm reaching back into my bag of tricks. It's another one-on-one sitdown with an iconic (and insentient) UK legend.

Wildcat Whisperer: So nice of you to join us.
Winston Bennett's Jheri Curl: You got, Whis. Glad to be here.

WW: So let's start at the top. Where are you from?
WBJC: Well, let's see. I guess you could say I "folliculated" from Louisville Male High School.

WW: So you're a Bulldog, then?
WBJC: Oh yeah, class of '83. Winston was the state's Mr. Basketball coming out of school, you know. Parade All-American. He brought me with him to Lexington after accepting UK's scholarship offer. But I started in the early 80's when Winston, um, activated me.

WW: Got it....the 80's....
WBJC: Yeah, I had a pretty good run for a little while there, but as you know, I was long gone by the time Winston left UK. He went with the short cropped look as a junior.

WW: So does it bother you that people think of you as just a flash in the pan?
WBJC: It hurts a little, yeah. Hopefully it hurts Winston a little bit too. Maybe not as much as his knee surgery, but some. Sure.

WW: So you and Winston...
WBJC: Yeah, we're not on speaking terms at all.

WW: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
WBJC: Well, to be honest I think he was always maybe a little embarrassed by me. Like he knew I was trendy and fashionable, but for him...... it really was just a fling, nothing long-term.

WW: Can you give us an example?
WBJC: Sure. That's easy. Just look at the picture above (photo courtesy of Jon Scott's archive). Winston isn't exactly staring at the camera and smiling proudly, is he?

WW: I guess not....
WBJC: And what about James Blackmon! I mean, that guy is so ashamed he can't even turn around for the photo. Me and James Blackmon's Jheri Curl, oh man, we used to be real tight. It breaks my heart.

(awkward pause)

WW: So what can you tell us about Winston, and his days as a Wildcat? Anything positive?
WBJC: Objectively? I think he was underrated. I really do. Voted All-SEC two times by the coaches. Nearly 1400 career points and 800 boards. He was even academic all-conference as a sophomore.

WW: Not a bad college career, then.
WBJC: Not at all. And Winston came back from that surgery pretty strong. He played a ton of minutes as an upperclassman. And while a lot of fans maybe expected more from him, considering his prep accolades, he was the kind of solid, consistent contributor that this current group lacks.

WW: Ouch.
WBJC: Well, think about it. Freshmen are going to be freshmen. Mistakes are part of the deal. Some kids take a little time to learn how to win at the D1 level, coaching aside.

WW: You realize BBN is tired of hearing that, especially this late in the season. I know I am.
WBJC: But I think there's really some truth to it-- allowing time for maturity. Gives you a little more respect for a guy like Josh Harrellson, who's turned out to be quite the late bloomer. Sometimes you gotta grow into it. Hey! Maybe you could interview his Amish beard sometime.

WW: Yeah....*coughs* .....moving on, then....
WBJC: Or Rex Chapman's mini-mullet!

WW: MOVING ON THEN...look...I hate to do this....but we can't talk about Winston without mention his...well, his....
WBJC: Addiction? Sexual addiction. You can say it.

WW: Yes, his addiction...that really threw a wrench into his budding coaching career.
WBJC: Well, I think I share some of the blame myself for that situation.

WW: How so?
WBJC: Well, think about it, do you imagine that so many women would have been interested in the guy if he had continued rockin' me up top?

WW: Ah.
WBJC: Yeah, I'm telling you by 1990, I was absolutely kryptonite when it came to attracting the fillies. That damn Eddie Murphy.

WW: Eddie?
WBJC: Sure man, you mean you didn't realize that Eddie Murphy single-handedly crushed an entire hairstyle. Little film called "Coming to America", 1988. You should check it out.

WW: Oh, of course....Prince Akeem. Arsenio! I remember.
WBJC: Yeah, Eddie was in his prime back then, and he was pretty ruthless with the Soul Glo plotline. Not to mention Sexual Chocolate. But things would never be the same after that couch scene.

WW: Oh yeah! *giggles* "They got the Big Mac, we got the Big Mick".
WBJC: (in Yiddish accent) "What about Rocky Marciano?"

WW: *laughs even louder* (also in Yiddish accent) "What is this, velvet?"
WBJC: Okay, that's enough. We could be here all day.

WW: (straightening up) You're right, Jheri. Can I call you Jheri? Well, thanks again for being here. Any final thoughts?
WBJC: Just this....don't you quit on your Wildcats. Not as a team, not as individuals. Freshmen, Seniors. Doesn't matter. Don't quit on 'em. Ever. They all thrive with that Big Blue Support.

WW: Wouldn't dream of it. You know we're Blue for life around here, Jheri.

Thanks for reading.

Road Crash Again For UK

I'm ignoring blogger rule #1 tonight.

Rule #1 is don't blog angry.

Like the rest of BBN, I'm fairly hacked off at the way Kentucky has managed to drop another game to an inferior SEC opponent away from Rupp Arena. But if I never posted after road losses, well, I'd hardly get to post during this conference run.

It just doesn't make sense. It really doesn't.

The "youth" excuse is tired. Nay, exhausted. We know they're a young team. Can we agree to get over it?

You can't blame it on the refs. Not tonight.

Arkansas didn't just go absolutely bonkers from 3.

UK just got beat.

And mainly by their own mistakes.

I'd rather avoid the litany of mental breakdowns, but let's give a special acknowledgment to the "dumb foul" category. Fouling jump shooters. Fouling guys on layups. Giving the Razorbacks those chances for "and-ones"....not to mention technicals. Oy.

And each loss bumps the Cats further down the seeding ladder, with March a mere 6 days away.

It's a good thing Bobby was at the Hound tonight to talk me down before I got into the car to drive home. (Driving angry is worse than blogging angry.)

So. Can anybody figure these guys out? Help me.

I really think of this team as Brandon Knight's team. That's maybe not how it should be, maybe not fair. He's only a freshman blah blah blah, and probably playing out of position, but when the rubber meets the road, I think of Brandon as the "leader" -- quotation marks very necessary. Terrence can score plenty, Josh and Darius and DeAndre are older...I get all of that. But I think we only go as Brandon goes these days.

So I didn't mind him getting a good look, er, make that two good looks at the end of regulation for the W. Fire away! Knock one down.

Be the hero, B. It's all you.

And even the fact that he missed them both-- it just don't nag me all that much. He looked confident shooting them. He didn't hesitate like well, you know what, let's not go there.

But the turnover at the end of OT.... ye gods! (to borrow a phrase from Gregg Easterbrook) what's the rush? Inexcusable. You can't just chuck that ball into space like that. That's a panic play.

Throw it up at the basket if you must. Maybe a teammate gets the rebound. Call a timeout. Heck, just hold onto it and give up the ball on a 5-second call. At least then you can set up your defense. Don't throw it out there and give the opponent a chance to take it the other way and take the lead.

But unfortunately, Brandon had a brain freeze and it really cost Kentucky.

Grrr! Makes me wanna cuss.

And yet.

And YET!

The Cats get it back, with some time, and poor Brandon gets a shot at redemption, going towards the bucket, admittedly covered pretty well, and puts up an awkward attempt that didn't have much of a chance. A nice aggressive move, to put it kindly. But he was trying to make something happen.

You saw it.... we all did.

And I guess you give him kudos for effort. Hard to blame a guy who puts up 26 points on the night.

Insult to injury: who gets the last-gasp effort with less than two seconds to go? I'll give you no guesses. And it was no dice. Not tonight. Not in Fayetteville.

Man. I hope Mr. Knight has a short memory.

I just know I'm having a tough time getting over all these road crashes.

Cal Still Perfect At Rupp, Home Streak Now at 30

Kentucky finished off Mississippi State by 6 on Tuesday night, 85-79, in a game that I personally figured UK would probably win by 10 or so. The victory keeps John Calipari's record spotless at home, and pulls the Cats up to 6 W's vs. 5 L's in SEC play.

The Vegas sports books (surprisingly) had the Cats listed as a 17.5 point favorite going into this matchup, far too kind-- but midway through the second half it looked as though the Bulldogs might be ready to start the bus. However, State managed to hang around thanks to some missed UK free throws down the stretch and several three pointers from Dee Bost and Jalen Steele.

Thus continues the Jekyll and Hyde UK season of looking nearly unbeatable at home, and shaky as all get out while on the road. I've always believed that Rupp delivers a home court advantage that is WAY above average in the world of NCAA basketball, but one has to discern that something else is afoot with the way that the Big Blue has struggled in conference away games.

Perhaps it's the rims, as Kentucky hit a respectable 9 for 22 from beyond the arc tonight, and even the "injured" Darius Miller had a 5 for 9 shooting game in scoring 13 points. Let's leave a description of the "injury" to others, since I've read the speculation and it does not sound pleasant at all....and besides, I didn't blog about the Vandy game and don't want to go back and revisit it anyway.

Player of the game for me was Brandon Knight, who had a better than usual assist (7) to turnover (4) ratio, and also tallied 24 points. Needs to work on his defense some more and getting around screens at the top, but it was a great game for B.

And keeping it short this evening, I just want to throw in a huge unendorsement of the ESPN skycam. I absolutely unendorse it. Heartily.

Riddle Me This: Where Was Darius?

I could conjure up a nice explanatory blog post tonight about Chris Warren getting just enough daylight to launch the game-winner in UK's 71-69 defeat at Ole Miss....

A poor job of fighting through the screen by DeAndre Liggins (normally a great defender), and a slow step out to help by Terrence Jones (a freshman with nice wingspan), would pretty much sum it up.

Granted, when the shot was fired, I thought it was a fairly low-percentage look for Warren. Not a complete "out of your nether regions" heave by any means, (and I would say everybody in the gym knew that he would take the final shot), but still not the cleanest look in the world. It was well beyond the arc, and a hand did get up in his face in the last split second. So I think you give Ole Miss credit there. It happens.

I could also envision a lengthy post centering on UK's lapses in scoring--those stretches of 3 or 4 minutes seemingly every game where it looks like the Cats come up empty on a dozen trips down the court. Is it a lack of cohesion in the dribble-drive? Absence of a true, back to the basket, low-post threat? Perhaps just a simple loss of concentration by a freshman-oriented team? Most Big Blue fans might choose "D", and you know what "D" means....

But instead I'm going to darken up the pixels this evening by lamenting the recurring theme of the amazing(!), stupendous(!)....disappearing Darius Miller.

Because all you need to know about the loss in Oxford is this: Darius played a total of 31 minutes tonight, and in all that time, he turned the ball over four times, scored three points, and pulled down exactly one rebound. That's your ballgame right there.

Now, plenty of UK fans have been more or less confounded by the former Mr. Basketball... for almost as long as he has been on campus. It's a classic case of being brilliant "at times", but completely absent from the proceedings at others.

Miller has started all 21 games this season and averages 10 points per game. He hits 81% from the charity stripe and a quite healthy 45 % from the three-point line. Heck, his overall FG percentage is at 48! That's better than Knight and Jones, both of whom average over 17 points.

Stop me if you've read this before, but it just seems like Darius has all the talent in the world, the ability to score both in the paint and from the perimeter, and yet he's prone to simply vanish from games like a puff of smoke.

Why? Why is that?

In his defense, by all accounts Darius has played better of late. The last several games saw what many were describing as a "true emergence" for the young man that wears the number one on his back. More aggressive....looking to score...a real leader and a presence. But when he turns in a stat line like this, in a road game against a conference foe that really has no business in upsetting UK...well, he just gets me more frustrated than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.

Of course to be fair, this loss is not entirely on him. UK had a very subpar start to the second half as a team. They allowed Ole Miss to hit 8 of 17 threes. Maybe Coach Cal again did a poor job of setting up a clear, concise play on UK's final possession. And certainly Warren had a good game for the Rebs, along with Reginald Buckner.

So I don't mean to just throw the goat horns on Darius, and blast away at him for kicks. But the fact remains that when you give a guy that much playing time, and get that little production in return, then you're basically playing 4 against 5. Makes it awfully tough.

And it's going to remain tough for UK as the conference plays out. A trip to Gainesville is next, and Mr. Miller needs to ensure that he makes it on the bus to the arena on Saturday.

I understand through the miracles of the twitter-verse that Darius has already sent out an apology for UK's loss tonight, in 140 characters or less. That's fine. I like the self-awareness and the courage that it takes to publicly acknowledge a poor performance. But Cal has got to have him playing closer to his potential if Kentucky is going to live up to secure any hardware this season. The riddle must be solved.