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!