Its John Walls world, we only live in it

Its John Walls world, we only live in it. There I told you in the last update that I hoped to be saying that by now. What wasn’t said was that John Wall is a man and doesn’t don a cape and become bullet proof. However he seems about as close as one could hope for in the situation KY fans have lived through now for about 10 years with no true point guard to lead the team.

So by now if you are reading this you fully are aware that there are folks out there pimping John Wall as a legend of his time. How much time exactly has that been? 38 minutes to be exact. .633 of an hour against Miami(OH). The great spectacle of this young man hit the game winning shot, after struggling early on, was a terrific sight. It all too well reminded me of Mr. Meeks again, only this time against FLA in his last game against them at Rupp last February and with about 2 more seconds to shoot. While this shot may have put JWall on the map as a clutch guy, what wasn’t abundantly clear was that he was our only chance for a shot because there wasn’t another avenue to get the ball even close. He took it and got it down the court in speed that can only be appreciated in the Bonneville Salt Flats. He was Mr. Clutch, 38 minutes into a career that could have (and might have) been labeled frustrating up to that point. What was the most frustrating, and commendable to Miami, was that they denied the driving lanes on both sides of the lane and the middle itself. The “post passing patterson” that we have seen right inside of the free throw line the first three games was evicted from his spot by up to 4 guys wearing red jerseys. They did a terrific job of denying UK the lanes that made Eric Bledsoe (who was very quiet tonight) look like the last coming in game 3 at Rupp. When the teams that try to zone us like that fail at getting to the shooters (read-Dodson) that is when they will open back up and Mr. Wall can do his magic or DD himself can make it rain points. One thing that they couldn’t do which was promising was stress us from full court like Morehead had done with more success. While the drives into the zone coverage created a lot of the turnovers we had last night I would remind any UK fan how much would we have loved to had only 15 turnovers in more than half of our games last season. With a much bigger team that can play zone and cover the outside like North Carolina it makes me wonder when our bigs are going to see some pass-post play and not just the DDMO all the time.

Maybe my continual joking about Gillispies “mysteriouso elusive” scorer that never materialized last year may come back to haunt me this season. We are no longer looking for our outside shooter Dodson to show up, he did last night going 3-4 from “treyville” as color commentator and former cat Mike Pratt puts it. What we are looking for is him to be in the game. This is a spot where too much talent to be all on the floor at the same time may actually do harm to the cats. Wall, Bledsoe, P-squared, Big Cuz, Miller were all on the floor at the same time when we needed that still elusive shooter and weren’t able to produce. I have a feeling that Dodson’s lack of defensive intensity overshadowed his shooting and ultimately kept him from being in the game. His play was clean but that is because all he was doing was shooting and playing loose on defense. I fear that Darius Miller is putting undue pressure upon himself to produce and is overplaying a bit but the bottom line is that his defensive skills are keeping him in the game even when he is not scoring. He could be our other rainmaker when the lane is closed to drivers. It was good to see him play such a “clean” game contributing across the board with no turnovers. Calipari kept screaming for Darnell (and others to be fair) to be up playing his man and instead at least 3 of the record tying 15 3-pointers by a UK opponent (EVER in Rupp) were because of a good look from deep outside past the line. That good look is what has been pissing Cal off the most lately. It’s the same good look that last season cost us big time.
Speaking of pissed off, when KY went down by 16 in the first half (the total got to 18 eventually) there was a UK timeout and once everybody huddled, Cal got up out of his chair and smacked down his clip board on his seat. After pacing around the back of the huddle he came behind his chair and punched the E-L-S (if you have to ask you don’t want to know) out of the board breaking it into two pieces and screaming “WHY ARE YOU PLAYING THIS WAY?”. After abruptly sweeping the broken pieces out of his seat he got back to work with a more attentive audience. The feeling of that huddle was almost comparable to that of a funeral home. Once again his high energy approach to being the devil in brief spurts seemed to catch everyone’s attention. I haven’t heard any F-bombs yet but I am sure they have been abound.

I am going to put this simply. DeMarcus “Big Cuz” Cousins finally quit pouting like a baby last night and out played everyone on the court during his spans in the second half. He dared to let anyone get a good hand on his put backs and wouldn’t be denied the rim to get them. So good at one point did required help to guard him totally leaving P-squared right under the basket for what is likely one of the easy yet still assertive dunks he will see this year. P himself was a silent partner for the cats only getting another double-double. A lot of folks are expecting more from him but I don’t think he is underplaying or even spreading the wealth. In his position at the next level he will be a 14-ish point scorer a night and be a mid range machine that will see a lot of successes. Why does he need to score 20+ pts a night if he is making sure his team is clicking and running well? Look at how “clean” his stats look with good shooting/rebounding but a couple of turnovers.

A quick look at the stats doesn’t give the credit due to Cuz as his 19 minutes were really 9-10 minutes in two different worlds. The first-half “world” was totally awkward and foul ridden but at least he didn’t get 3 this half this time. The second world would be Krypton (sorry I am going to stick to the Superman theme for him), 10 points and 10 boards in roughly 10 minutes says a lot about how his play changed and perhaps how he grew even over one half of a game. He is my MVP of the game because without his contribution we would be stuck comparing MOH to VMI or Gardiner Webb. Oh by the way sorry for the VMI near jinx from the last update. I am starting to sound like the negative old man at the Herald Leader now!

A big tip of the paw to Codi for taking some great pictures this game, she was totally on top of her game minus the drooling over where she was sitting (or being so close to those ballers)!