more coming soon!

So sorry this blog hasnt been updated but life has gotten in the way. I have a full Senior day slate of video and blah-ging coming soon after i get all the pics in line first.

Cruise Control Cats finding ways to outplay their opponents and make it look hard.

One thing was similarly clear on Saturday afternoon; Kentucky was weathering another opponent who again for some reason played better in the second half than the first. The big difference I saw was that Kentucky, well actually DeAndre Liggins, was relentless on defense. The sophomore jinx appears over for him as he was the driving defensive force that kept Vandy’s better shooting at bay and managed to guard Jermaine Beal better than either of the fab freshmen phenoms Bled-Bled or Wall. To me this is very telling and says that it really does matter that they are freshmen because there are inconsistencies in their defense that DeAndre seems to have been able to key on and maintain focus. With Liggins’ 9 pts, 4 rebs and 2 steals with 0 turnovers in 25 minutes it seemed to have an effect on the rest of the team and allowed people to maintain their defensive positions better than the moving screens they were seeing and not getting calls for in the first half. I said it here before peeps starting calling John Wall superman, DeMarcus Cousins THINKS HE IS SUPERMAN! Regardless if the peter parker persona he carries on with in the post game interviews is true to form this man is a superhero under the basket and around the rim. His averages in SEC play is sick and with his 21 pts, 10 rebs and the ability to get others involved against Vandy he may in fact be the emerging Kentucky superman even more than his freshmen teammate that the world all seems to know about already. It’s hard to imagine we have so many young players all grabbing so many double-doubles. The spin move that he has developed is deadly fast and he his so big the opponent has zero chance at defending it as he uses the rim to his advantage in scoring usually with the and-1 foul shot. I counted at least 5 and-1’s for the day for Cousins which was huge.

Coach Kevin Stallings recieving his talking to following his Technical Foul

What was super hard to see on Saturday was why in the hell the refs decided that they were going to determine the pace of the game by calling foul on every single instance of contact (real or anticipated as we saw early when the refs couldn’t decide if they saw a foul or not). I don’t think I have ever witnessed an NCAA game with 58 fouls in less than 40 minutes (that’s one every 39 seconds of play). I had the pleasure of greeting those refs when they came up to the scorers table to review the play. “EVERY SINGLE GAME” I said, “EVERY SINGLE GAME”, “YOU GUYS ARE OFFICIATING BY REPUTATION”.

At that point Codi uncomfortably squirmed in her seat in hopes that we weren’t going to get a talking to, or escort out by Mitch himself. The Roy Williams gaffe where he kicked out the opposing fan for heckling a UNC free-thrower ran through my head. Then John Calipari came to the edge of his coaches box and started asking, “are you going to look before the foul to see what caused it to happen?”, “if you are looking at our guy you gotta go all the way back”. The ref promptly asked the video folks to, “show the entire 35” meaning the whole play from the beginning but unfortunately Cal was trying to talk them into seeing how they lured him in. I feel that they were going to actually try and throw double technicals at Cousins and Vandy’s player. Smartly enough they passed and gave him a non-flagrant personal foul. Probably the best scenario that could have happened from that set up. While on the subject of fouls, when Big Cuz got his first true personal technical from mouthing off, he once again was penalized for the perception of what the refs thought he said. I was within 5 feet of him and he never said anything near profanity. He actually said, “what the phhh, man”, “unbelievable”. Unfortunately for him the refs preconceived notion that he was a trouble maker solidified his chances of getting a technical foul based on their opinion and a little help from the frosh.

Incompatent referee trying to explain to Coach about the Cousins Technical foul then to Pat

With the solid defensive play led by Liggins the cats out rebounded the commodores 41-22 which is super. Anyone who watches the Cal show knows he usually tells the team during pre-game that holding them under 40% shooting, +10 rebs and +10 assists and having fun is a formula for a win. Although the +10 on assists didn’t happen the rest certainly did allowing the cats to maintain and play their game even when the zone D from Vandy reared its ugly head. The motion offense seems to now be finding guys who are going to hit shots consistently and that in my opinion is a huge huge factor in UK going a long way this season. Seeing Darnell drain the 3s was a wonderful sight and seeing so many guys in double digits takes me back to those more significant wins that we have had this season. Dodson has had a roller coaster season much like Darius Miller but they both are similar in play, minutes and aggressiveness (or lack of sometimes). I do believe that DDot is the better athlete and player of the two and should see another start against Miss on Tuesday. I love the fact that such talented ballers are now all competing for a single position on the floor. It reminds me of a certain mid-90s team that I won’t mention out of fear of jinx.
I don’t think I have ever heard a large crowd buzz so much in excitement than when King James himself rolled into the game. Having Lebron show up was a huge boon to our recruiting as most people don’t know that one of our major recruits was behind the UK bench and got to see for himself just how big the big blue are.

Lebron James not watching the action!

The celebrity “Y” was for the first time that I remember a non-UK grad/former athlete. I would like to know who else may have that distinction to share with Lebron? For the most part he cut up and had fun watching the game and really got to laughing when Taylor for Vandy chinked a reverse dunk.

King James version of the "Y"

Seems like the wildcats are slowly appearing to be a multi-headed monster that is going to be hard to stop. I want to backtrack one year for a moment and realize that we had lost 6 more games at this point last year so FORGET about South Carolina last week. On, On U of K to the next victim!

A wonderful afternoon with my Mammaw...

Mammaw Foley had the time of her life today. Once we made our way into Rupp Arena and had Codi & Grace on their way to shop, we had a truly wonderful afternoon. Getting there too early forced us into our first great adventure of the day, the escalator. Now believe me if you want but 87 year olds and escalators don’t mix well together. As I literally was lifting her onto the first escalator she finally took the necessary step to make me quit freaking out. The second one went well for her but stretched me out and wasn’t anywhere near a close call as the first one. We found ourselves (well.. her) a spot on a bench and proceeded to have a nice conversation about several things as we waited on the arena to open. Looking out onto all the sea of blue she couldn’t help herself to one of her seemingly favorite past times: pointing out extremely obese people. No joke she has done it my entire life and I know with all those people it was like shooting fish in the barrel. Admittedly there were a few and I found myself trying not to look like the way you do when you pass a bad wreck as she pointed them out. Thank god a man and lady had a seat in front of us and the lady was knitting. If it weren’t for that I would have probably had the fattie count up to at least a dozen by the time they opened the gates.
At exactly an hour and a half before the game we found ourselves in no line for an elevator as the masses crowded the stairs and escalator. As we were waiting in the line to go through security and to the other end I couldn’t help but make the mental note to wait till closer to game time next time she comes with me. We made our way through the sparsely arranged folks on the concourse and on to the elevator at the top of our section. After a short ride back down the three stories we had already gone down, and up already we found ourselves in the guts of Rupp Arena where many people never get to see. The gentleman on the elevator directed us to where we needed to go and as we made the turn I realized we had just walked through the front entrance area of the Arkansas locker room. I quietly tried to tell her where we were when she said “the locker room?”, it was quite a funny moment as I was trying to not make a deal about it and she did it for me. As we turned the corner towards the arena we started to go out through the tunnel and she exclaimed. “I feel important coming out of here” and that statement couldn’t have been truer. She didn’t realize it but she was the vip of the day for me. We walked our way by the Arkansas bench and on to our seat where we passed Tony Delk, Scott Padgett and a few of the team doing a soft shoot around.

Once we made our way to our seats the arena began slowly filling. Once it became at least half-way filled 3 generations of Rupp men commenced to sit in front of us on the front row. When the warm-ups began an encouraged Mammaw exclaimed, “we are right at eye level with the boys, eh hee”. Little did we know there was a spectacle of a performance about to commence. The game itself was a true joy for me as I got to see the game through her eyes somewhat. On each basket as Kentucky started the game 10-0 she squealed with excitement and on some baskets, including the one where Cousins blocked, rebounded, and passed out to Wall for a lay-up, she was louder than me! She was particularly amazed by “how big Cousins is” and how fast the Wall/Bledsoe combo was “up the court so fast I almost missed them, there like rabbits”. The entire game lightened her face like a child in wonder. She obviously was thrilled to be up so close and told me that she thought that I wasn’t “right on the floor”. Getting to hear the referees and Calipari go back and forth was a real treat and she especially was attuned to when the players would check into the game and she could hear them telling the scorer who they were going in for. I am under the impression it gave her an entirely different perspective to the game even though she had been to games before. She opted to stay for the John Calipari radio show and thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the people fill in that side of the arena and getting to see how the interviews etc actually happen. About half way through the radio show I believe that she grew tired of hearing the coach’s fluff on the game, fans etc and said it was time to go. As we excited through the opposite tunnel we came in on I happily told her we were walking by UKs locker room and low and behold there was Cousins and Orton leaving for the parking lot. After pointing them out to her and letting her see them we kept on walking towards the exit. Upon exiting the building at the security door we began walking out into the back parking lot and a door opened up to our left and another person began walking out next to us. He was wearing a pink shirt and tie and it was hard to get the words out of my mouth that John Pelphry was walking next to us. I said “good game coach, good luck with the rest of your season”. After a 31 point homecoming scorching of his pretty decent team he turned and very humbly said, “thank you so much I appreciate it”. It was like a captivating finish to an extraordinary day and I couldn’t believe my self that it went so great and that in the end it was an unforgettable going home just like us yet mammaw is the unforgettable this day. It seemed that everything went perfectly and for me that is what I wanted more than anything for my lovely Mammaw. Mammaw Foley had the time of her life today and I had the great privilege to be there and experience it with her.

Dedicated to my Mammaw,
Love Jason

Chin of stone, tooth of porcelain.

Coaches Calipari & Pelphry greet pre-game

When DeMarcus Cousins was taken out of the game with less than two minutes of play it wasn’t because of poor playing, nor was it because of the dreaded fouls that he seems to collect. It was because he was missing the crowns on his front two teeth from an innocent play where Courtney Fortson’s forearm struck Cousins’ face on the way back down. He wanted to walk off the floor once he realized what had happened and he had teeth fragments in his mouth. The coaches expeditiously reminded him not to leave the playing area and get a technical. Once he had deposited the fragments on the bench and was cleared to play he actually thought he was going back in and became upset at the notion he wasn’t getting back into the game. How tough is that? Its about as tough as a kid who scores 16 pts & 14 rebs in 17 minutes by being two-downed and three-downed each time there is even a hint the ball is coming his way. I shouldn’t have to remind you that he didn’t react whatsoever to a solid lick to the face. Sadly I do. It seems on nearly every play he is getting hacked but its rarely called. Is it because he is so big and aggressive that the refs look the other way? Is it because of his reputation as being an unstable player on the court? Notice I said reputation because through the first 20 games of the season I have seen very little actual play that supports any of the misguided reports that he is a loose cannon. Rebound machine

Eric Bledsoe seems much more of a loose cannon than Cousins as he seems to always find the controversy when he is on the court and it seems to find him too. Dare I say if it weren’t for his pre-game antics at the Louisville game the early scrum may not have happened? I am beginning to start calling him the teams “spiritual” man as he seems to really get his entire emotional self into the game. While this sounds negative it could very well be the thing that gets his teammates hyped up without having to encounter the other side on a personal level like he does. Darnell & Miller able to learn their roles better and Millers stroke was near perfect this night with 18 big pts, player of the game honors, and being the radio show guy. It was great seeing DeAndre whip out his membership card to the hustle club. He simply stuck the D so close to the Arkansas guards that it was obviously affecting the way they were able to interact with their teammates. The super hustle and diving to the floor making every 50-50 ball his created the turnovers that allowed the cats to push over the hogs this day. It’s obvious he has now worked his way into the magic 7 that Cal likes to rotate from even though it’s really a magic 9. Who would think that Cal would embellish something to prove a point? How great is it that it’s actually 9? I don’t see another team that deep out there currently. Total team hustle was everywhere as guys are trying to prove their worth to the team including guys like Harrellson who is a constant force when he gets into the game and of course Perry who had a nice dunk on his birthday. Happy Birthday Perry or “Per-Bear” as one sign read.John Wall seems to have about as much fun as any wildcat I have ever seen. Always smiling & welcoming the pain infliction from the contact on his and-1s. He seems fearless in taking the ball to the rim knowing the consequences of such a drive is going to be at least a two man hack job to keep the basket from happening. This is clearly a resignation by most opposing coaches that he is going to do his thing and the only way to stop him is to hack him in the pre-shot drive. Similar to the reservation they are going to have to hack Cousins to death to try and limit his output. Wall does have a few questions as good as he is. The first is that I have been still seeing him stand flat footed on the defensive end when others are around the basket. Could he be trying to avoid an injury? It seems that he knows the system better than anyone on the team but is driving it a bit to enhance his style of play. I can see this slowly going away from the level it was happening early on. That could mean only one thing, he is maturing. As he gains wisdom it appears his skill level is growing too. Good decision making when under control.

Patrick has been labeled the leader all season. There are still moments that his silent leadership role turns into a playful game of showing his teammates he is the de-facto leader of the entire blue army. As DeMarcus was stretching at the half court line right below our seats Pat ran over and said “move freshman”, “you heard me”. That’s when Cuz reluctantly gave up his position next to the scorers table and moved further out on the court. When Pat laid down to begin his stretching routine Cuz playfully pointed his gun finger at Patterson and told him how much he loved to move over for him. Arriving at the game incredibly early allows you to see some great interaction amongst the team. During the soft shoot around Pat was lip syncing to several of the rap tunes and was feeling the flow getting his teammates mentally loose while they were physically loosening up. It was pure pleasure seeing the whole team having so much fun together prepping for a game.

Joker Phillips was giving a lengthy interview in the second half sitting right behind UKs basket during play. Seeing Dermante Dawson who sits down and to the left of us was another good shot in the arm with some football. A very active and loud coach Robic was calling a majority of the plays and he appears to be an x & o type of coach. As long as he has been with Cal its hard to imagine he isn’t a big part of the success they have shared. Seeing John Pelphry is always a drive down memory lane for this wildcat fan. Its hard not to cheer for a guy you have a lot of respect and love for like him. He is a gentlemen and a pretty good coach too.

"We're #1, We're #1, We're #1"

Ear shots Cal:
After an Arkansas pass deflection that was missed by the ref and called as a turnover for us the replay (which is usually limited to offense) shown in Rupp happened and the crowd showed their disapproval. As the ref approached the scorers table Cal loudly barked, “you missed that one & everybody in the building saw it” retrieving a rebuttal from the ref, “coach I am a ref and I miss one every now and again”. A chagrined Cal glowingly approved of the refs admission, “well I just want you to say to me is ‘hey coach I missed that one’, that’s all”. I love how this man gets inside the refs head on occasion even when the ref knowingly falls into the trap.

Big shout out to this games MVP Mammaw Foley!

2nd SEC test, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse

How tough is this team? A lot of folks that I talk to are saying that this group doesn’t have a killer instinct and won’t put teams away. Even though we aren’t killing teams early I think there is an element that is being overlooked. True Grit. That true grit that comes from working hard daily and putting personal glory behind your team’s goal of winning games. If you look at the last 3 games now, 1 against little brother and 2 against SEC opponents, and one in Gainsville each of those teams have come out shooting very well after half. Could this be the zone and press defense is slowing us down thus allowing those schools who perform better in the half court and rely on shooting? I think that might have something to do with it. Florida came out of the locker room after half shooting much better. The problem is that they had no where to go but up as they were having horrible shooting already. Just an assumption but our stopping their shooting wasn’t Cals concern this game. Getting 22 rebounds on our end and out boarding us in the 2nd half allowed them to stay in the game. I do have a couple of questions forming about this team. The first is that I seem to pick up on a mental block with a couple of players that seem to not be excited enough to be intensive and aggressive. You already know I am talking about Darius and Darnell. What you thought I was talking about Psquare? Read the last entry if you did.

On a level of general toughness and grit I don’t see them getting better than 3 of our guys, Big Cuz, Psquare and Jimmy (John Wall). Those guys duke it out with the best of the best on a nightly basis. Please remember this is the freshman laden team grinding a tough win out at tough venue. Bled-Bled has a little slack in his game but that has disappeared as of recent but Daniel Orton surely is showing signs of greatness, for the future, with his 3 consecutive blocks. To me it’s obvious with his great attitude and contribution until he gets his minutes that he is certainly comfortable in the back seat of the UK HellWagon coming to an SEC gym near you. I guess what it all boils down to is this group is not one of seasoned veterans but rookies. They might be the best prepared rookies in history because of the bubble they live in at UK or they just might be that good.

This is the 3rd consecutive game where in the 2nd half the other team shoots better than it did in the first half. Another somewhat convincing piece of evidence that points to this team letting let up on opponents after they sense the weakness and the ability to win over them. The only gothca that’s hard to see is that while the Gators were improving so were the cats. From the field UK got close to being great as their % from the floor was much better in the latter half as well. I do see our team as an improving team from the first half to the second in regards to field goal %s and actually overall with much better numbers recently in the second half. The immaculate UK fan I suppose requires something in which it should complain about. A good observation of this was at the Loserville game the UK fan behind me (not the season ticket holder but someone totally new) had to point out how bad UKs players were and do nothing but shout obscenities at the other team. All that his buddy would say is “you suck man” over and over again to Samuels. They chose to come to this great event and likely pay much more than the face value to make himself unhappy with the thing he likely puts right behind god & family.
Single handedly our rebounds and pts in paint won us this grinding match. We won points in the paint 50-28 and out-rebounded them in the second half. Simply put we had the advantage on them down low. With Cousins playing well Bledsoe just took over and couldn’t be stopped. His career night may have been because his grandmother was in attendance and I suggest that we get her to the rest of his games for the duration. He was mr. ice for the rest of the game hitting the coffin lids nail with his long 3 with about 4 minutes left then coming back down and hammering home an additional nail.

Its obvious we are everyone’s target each night as we haven’t really disappeared from the front running of the SEC in about 60 years. Whats not so obvious is there are going to be games and players that sneak up on us because we don’t know their staff as well as we should and get beat by an unknown “crazy” factor. It will be interesting to see if the opponents keep trying to spread, shoot from the perimeter and press/zone us like they have been. This is really only allowing us to take them out of their games. IF everyone is playing their best and we are simply “pawing” them as if to play with our food its truly scary how good we could actually be in two months. Very scary. 17-0 is great but 2-0 in the league is very important as well. Another road game in the SEC awaits as yet another test to this young group.

UGA: Welcome to the SEC (first edition)

It didn’t take very long to see that even with a mediocre record and few if any big names that Georgia came ready to play. Even as the cats were opening up their early lead DeMarcus Cousins found out what a mediocre SEC opponent can do to you. The nearly 7 foot freshman learned quickly that anyone can get dunked on, especially in SEC play. In Cousins defense however he was trying to do as instructed and not claim an early foul by setting up for an attempted charge. I’ll bet that is the last time a player from that far out will see Big Cuz setting up for the charge. From now on I think he will get the stop or the foul just not the way he did by getting posterized by Travis Leslie. Even John Wall could feel the heat off the play as Leslie was in the process of missing his free throw then getting his rebound, Wall was walking away from the center of the court right towards where we were sitting. You could see he was being sympathetic for Cuz but at the same time his face was saying “ouch, that burns to be him”. It was good to see that the big man wasn’t fazed and on the next UK set managed to take it to the rim, drain the basket, miss the free shot and then get his own rebound. It was truly a shame that he fumbled the ball away as it would have been a truly defining moment in the short career of this kid. For the rest of the game he simply tried to manhandle anyone under both ends basket and truly made UGA work for anything it got inside. That’s not to say they had some effect down low. For spurts we can see why UK is so heralded a team however there are other periods of play where we can almost agree with Cal on our 9-7 faux record. The first 10 minutes and the last 6 minutes of the game we handed UGA what we should be looking like for an opponent. Defensively smothering and at least better than average efficiency on the offensive set. The 24 minutes in between, we were outplayed and sadly with no sense of urgency from our team to stop it. The big thing for me was that GA wasn’t bad from the field in the first half. Actually they did better than most teams we played from the field, 3, and free throws. The bad news there is that they improved in the second half just like the most recent games we have played where the opposing team is hanging in there still. Trailing at half should have been a wake up call and it really wasn’t. The superior play of two players kept GA floating, one was obviously Thompson who I was really impressed with and the other was the “little white kid” who is actually Ricky McPhee. Thompson played very well and wasn’t intimidated at anything that the cats threw his way. 17 pts and 13 boards show he was the main front court presence for the bulldogs. He single handedly led the dogs as they out rebounded us in both halves. Little McPhee was killing us from the perimeter and was shooting most of his from 23 feet or further. Its one of those things where sure we should have been on him tighter but there is only so much room a double screen and a run out away from the position can be guarded from. If he had been at the 20 foot mark he would have been fed leather all day but instead he got out, way out and became effective. A lot of their long rebounds came from long shots but there isn’t a reason in the world why we should have been out boarded in this game. Specifically Miller, Dodson, and Ramon should be grabbing these shots but they arent looking for them. Perhaps its a result of playing on such a fast team that you are constantly looking up the floor.
In the long and short of it Big Cuz was on his game even though the rough down low play by Georgia was an attempt to unsettle him and take him out of his game. He did just the opposite, he handled nearly every pass with a soft touch while working his way to the shot. When you get double downed every time you are going to put the ball up be ready to shoot your free throws, and Cuz did just that going 6-9. He came up big with rebounds and scores as well as taking the ball away 7 times. Sitting in for a KY team that was shooting horribly was all that Cuz could do, he picked up his team and let Psquared do his thing on the other side and willed us to victory. There has been a lot of talk about this teams will to win (or not squander a win) while people tend to not think about us being an all freshman team like we really are. I don’t believe we are utilizing a true will to win but that we are just that imposing on the people we play. Its going to be hard for us to lose when we shoot more than the other team, but on this night we only had 7 more shots than our opponents. In the end three events played out in my mind over and over, it’s the soft pass in to a determined to score Cuz, it’s the headband being knocked off his head and defiantly thrown to the bench as if to say “lets get it on” and it most importantly while being enticed to participate in extracurricular activities under the basket and shrugging them off as to prove to the other guys that you are indeed better than them. Even though he is already huge, Cuz is growing in many ways. A big hand to DeAndre Liggins proving to the world why Cal kept him on his team by playing solid defensive minutes and getting 6 pts of his own that he helped create. It seems this young man is growing at an unknown rate as well. I am going to say this one more time here so I wont ever have to again, Psquare is gong to consistently night-in, night-out put up 17 pts and 8 rebounds. Does that mean he isn’t doing his part? What if he were doing more and taking away from his teammates? I would see complaints then as well. Scoring more isn’t going to improve his draft status, playing outside of his comfort zone well will. With John Wall getting all the credit for leading this team Psquared needs to stay in his zone and do his thing and he will be just fine. As for Wall isnt it a familiar sight to see JWall on the line late in the game sealing another W for the cats? If we dont have a killer instinct as a team at least our point guard has one. With their first SEC victory in their back pocket now we can indeed look ahead to Gainsville in hopes we can put a real hurting on the “reptards” as my baby girl puts it. Lets hope we can cool the shooting of the opponent and not allow the long rebounds or it will be a long night at FLA.
A big shout out to Wazoo sports again as they have been playing some ultra-classic games of the modern era of UK including the entire 96 & 98 championship runs. I wish I could buy stock in that network. Seeing Pittsburg Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin chillin with Joker made me want to try and come up with as many papaw brooks jokes as I could but for some reason I wisely chose to focus on the game. Getting to see Ashley and stand next to her during the half was also a blast from the past as she was the celebrity “Y”. And last but not least another shout out to my honey who is getting much better at photography as the season goes on.