What the heck does that mean? Well simply put everyone is coming at us with their A games early. That is not a bad thing for us as we are seeing some solid backcourts that usually have a combined 4 years advantage on our two freshman playmakers in Wall and Bledsoe who now have a combined 5 games experience on this level of play. The other frosh, the guy who thinks he is superman, Big Cuz brought it to the house tonight.
For me the difference in this KY team and the GREAT one that it could be are related to 4 things: 3s, frees, Ts and D.
There is an old basketball saying that says you can’t stop a great shooter when he is shooting great. I think that has been half of the issue with the cats getting rained on like its April. While it is difficult to see when a great shooter is going to shoot (a la Jodie Meeks) its not difficult to get in his face if you are playing in the appropriate position in front of him and between him and the basket. The half of the opponents’ 3-point issue that is a problem is that they are getting great looks at the ball while a cat has either been screened in the low post area or the guy responsible for guarding him is flat footed or too far back. I think all three of those issues have created the “rain” in Rupp this season. SH St. had a 4 guard set-up from the beginning and wasn’t a great low post team.
The frees is easy, shoot 65% of your free throws and you could lose the NCAA Championship to a lesser team. Whoops that actually already happened to our coach in 2008. Free throws cost him a championship. The T stands for turnovers and they have been plentiful, mostly from our inexperience handling the ball in the zone at this level of play. Hopefully that will clean up as the season goes along and we start stretching the floor out, especially in the half court where we will have to make everyone start giving up at least one if not two people to come out of the standard zone and chase. When that happens, man o man it will get interesting (and more fun) to watch. Obviously the last one is the defensive intensity (you heard it here first a couple of updates ago folks) that seems to have caught only a few eyes this year because nobody is talking much about it. When a team is hitting from outside like that you stay on them like stink on … er white on rice. That lack of urgency to be up in that guys face has primarily been the reason that Dodson and Harrelson are sitting. Its because they are slower to react and they both tend stay off on D when they should be up in their guys face, again especially from the perimeter.
Big Cuz got the superman thing in his head again Thursday night with 27 points and 18 rebounds. Please don’t anyone tell him that freshman don’t play like that on a regular basis. His ability to stay out of foul troubled fueled his game big time. Expect people to be coming hard after him and P-square to get them in foul trouble. The odd thing about this breakout game is that he could have played better. Hard to imagine I know but for just 27 minutes on the floor he dominated during that time except for the whole 5 turnover thing. Quick stat - Wall, Bledsoe and Cousins attributed to 17 of UKs total 23 turnovers which is not unheard of for freshman to do. He created two turnovers from blocks but he still had a great game and let go of the laces 5 times. Pretty impressive. Patterson had a great game shooting from outside, inside and at the line while at the same time creating offense for others by giving a couple of great dishes to Cuz. Its obvious that Cuz has the most growing to do on this team as a solid bballer as he lets his emotions get the best of him on a regular basis, although he could have the best game of any of our newcomers so far.
Uk got outscored by 1 in the second half (not good). We had a great rebounding show & didn’t let them have as many offensive rebounds. I am gonna start calling Eric Bledsoe tigger from now on as this little guard has bounce that rivals anything Christopher Robbins ever witnessed. He literally had to make up for almost a foot of height advantage to block that kid and stuff the ball beneath the rim. Yet another impressive frosh feat by Bledsoe who I think has the most firm grasp on the system and positioning so far. I believe his 5 3-pointers are proof of that.
Rider will be similar in set up as SH St. in that they are small and play several guards (up to 4) at once. It is for certain that this experienced team who has 4 returning starters and is 3-point trigger happy ( and prone to rain down on you) will come out shooting. Lets see if this team has adapted from their coaching the past 24 hours, that will be a big test.
Sorry no pics from the game tonight. We forgot to pay our photog this week :)
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