Last of the exhibitions

If you hear that faint echo beaming from the south of us you don’t need to see an audiologist. What you are faintly able to hear are the last questions from Chapel Hill, Lawrence and Raleigh-Durham slowly dribbling off into the universe whether John Wall is going to bring Kentucky back to the upper echelon of the college basketball world or not. A NOT-SO NEWS_FLASH here folks: John Wall is the real deal, the manchild, the man, the bomb whatever adjective you wish to use he probably fits it as he is not only as good as advertised, but perhaps better. The things we knew he could do he did, tomahawk dunk – check, around the back dribble to serve as a pass to himself – check, sliding by defenders making everyone in the building wonder how he could twist his body like that – check, making the rest of the team better-check; and of course scoring - 27 check marks here. Its John Walls matrix, the rest of us have to tumultuously grind ourselves, unlike our hero Wall - read Neo (Keanu Reeves), around in it while the things we do appear to be in slow motion. The man moves unlike any basketballer to ever don a UK Jersey. The moves he made on Friday against Clarion seemed to be other worldly in that he didn’t appear to be doing anything but just being the smooth roller he is. In this highly anticipated fishbowl John Wall is starting to show why he is the biggest fish in there, 27 points is a start but think about the other points that generated by his game high 9 assists. That is just him making everyone else draft pick caliber as he should be doing. If Eric Bledsoe is Jodie Meeks’ clone then thank god we got the first John Wall model so nobody could clone him before he plays in the Big Blue fishbowl. I cannot even begin to imagine how good the both of them on the floor will make us. The defense will be spread even further and create more room for the DDMO to make good things happen.

The consistency that I seem to detect from Miller will be an unsung role as leader throughout most of the season. He appears to be on the level and so cool in his demeanor as he scored 11 but also as did Wall provide great assists, 7. Not only are these great players all looking to score they are also looking for others to score. Once again the late gamers like Stevenson and Krebs are putting it to already tired teams don’t look for too many comebacks late in the game on us this year as these guys are doing superb off the bench. I am going to re-state from the previous story, Big Cuz thinks he may be impermeable to kryptonite and actually he’s got to be better than Superman in the low post. A highlight for me was to watch him drive the floor after taking the ball away from a defender then get the ball out in front to John Wall who would have probably opened up a new skylight in Rupp if the guy hadn’t flagrantly taken him down with the bear-hug defensive style that would make Grizzly Adams proud.
I am going to start this here but mark my words the media is going to soon be wondering where that elusive seventh scorer is on this team. With “only” six guys in double digits in scoring its makes life good to be guessing who is going to take the game over this time. The same thing happened Friday that happened in the first exb. game, how did Dodson score so without really being noticed? I suppose the answer is blue collar points earned the scrappy way just kind of show up. Once he connects from the outside on a hot night watch out because with his four assists he is proving he will get others the pill too. How about a team that “never” practices free throws going 25-30? Sounds to me like everything this administration is doing with this team is totally about-face to the fear/shame tactics that the players had to deal with last season under a different coach. What was his name again? I think everyone is finally forgetting his name.

A lot of talk in the media this week centered on Cal toughening up the team by 2-a-daying and making life hard caught some people off guard. My personal outtake on all of this is that it was done for the purpose of focusing a team that is too easily distracted by trying to learn a new system, get in shape and then perform in that system. They were forgetting about the toughness involved in training hard like the full 40 suicides in football oh yeah then going for a run. The defense was harrowing for little Clarion, we seemed to be all over them all over the court. With pressure like that and the wonderful directive to take it straight to the rim we will be looking like tennis spectators before its over with. Of course most of us will miss JWall as he blasts past us in supersonic mode. The big time stat of the game, UK hit the golden ratio of 12 or fewer turnovers with 18 or more assists. Cal said that the good games it ought to be 12-14 & 16-18 respectively and I want to believe him after watching much better efficiency on both ends of the court. Another quick stat is that there were 6 guys with over 20 minutes (and one with 19) but the max was 28 mins by wall. That 24-28 min thing Cal talked about too is coming to be. It appears a lot of his talk is straight, or has been so far.

After all this fuss we are still talking about what was the last of two exhibitions and everyone is getting warmed up including us shade tree participants. Its still mind bending to think at the current state and expectations of this programmed compared with 1 year ago. Simply amazing. Oh well the next one is for real, against a real opponent (from KY) who went to a real post-season tournament last year, unlike the team from Lexington…

When they throw the ball up against Morehead St. they will be keeping score for real this time and all the games matter now. Time to start paying attention now cats and kittys.