Another day, another SEC mercy kill for the Kentucky Wildcats.

Only twice this year has Kentucky put together a throat slash effort in conference play. One of them was Arkansas, and my message to the Arkansas fans is “you’re welcome.” The other one was yesterday. Don’t give me any crap about how LSU outscored Kentucky by two points in the second half. That doesn’t matter when you’re up by 28 at the half. It was a mercy kill, and if you watched the game, you had to feel for LSU.

One play really summed it up. Early in the second half, DeMarcus Cousins had a wide open dunk, but an LSU player fouled him to prevent the dunk. This “foul” sent the LSU player careening out of bounds into the photographers’ row. That is one team fully dominating another, just like Kentucky should always do in the SEC.

It was 6-1, then it was 10-10, and then it was 42-14. This is what good teams do to bad teams. I have about 97% of the UK games from 1992-2008 on VHS, and during the 90s, those teams went on big runs all the time. You could put very few of those runs up against what this team did to LSU yesterday. That was one of the best runs I’ve ever seen, and everybody contributed.

Let’s start with Cousins. I know Calipari will never do this because he’s smart, but it would be interesting to see Cousins play more in one of these blowout games, just to see how many records he could set. I think Trent Johnson is a good coach, but it was insanely stupid on his part to play man-to-man defense as long as he had his kids do. It was even dumber how he insisted on guarding Cousins straight up with no double teams as long as he did. Johnson ought to thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that he eventually switched up to double teams and later the 2-3 zone because if he hadn’t, Cousins would have gone for 50 and 30. It would have been a Wilt Chamberlain box score and he would have fouled out all of Johnson’s players. The man is a behemoth, and it has been a pleasure to watch him.

Of course, there are still frustrating moments with Cousins, but these aren’t even his fault. Did you see the offensive foul he had in the first half when he whacked that ginger with his elbow? For starters, it was hardly even a foul to begin with, and if another UK player had done this in Rupp Arena, there probably wouldn’t have been a call. But it was Cousins and it was a road game, hence the whistle. Secondly, who are the referees to watch that play as it happened and feel the need to check the monitor to determine the level of malice? Cousins wasn’t trying to knock the guy’s head off and he’s done far worse this season. He grabbed a rebound in traffic and tried to clear room. What’s he supposed to do when he lands on his feet with the ball and two guys are surrounding him? Bring the ball down and let them steal it? Doug Shows was desperate to call a technical foul for that one, but cooler heads prevailed. I’m happy that Calipari stood up for Cousins at the press conference.

Onto the other players, Patrick Patterson still doesn’t get enough touches in the set offense, but he has put together three very good efforts in a row after the terrible game against South Carolina, each one better than the last. He’s asserting himself more on both sides of the court and Calipari has said as much.

If you’re a Kentucky fan, no player’s success on this team should thrill you more than that of DeAndre Liggins. One of the reasons why Texas has struggled the last month is a lack of role definition on their roster. Aside from a couple guys, nobody on Texas knows what their main goal is for the betterment of the team, and so there’s clearly a case of too many alpha dogs that feel the need to take the ball in crunch time. That’s what I love about Liggins. He isn’t asked to do much, but he is very good at what he does. UK has always had a history of solid “energy guys” like James Lee, Heshimu Evans, Chuck Hayes and Ravi Moss. Liggins is just like that. He rebounds. He defends. He hustles more than anybody on the team. He finds himself in the right place at the right time on offense. He initiates the offense with the dribble drive. He’s developed a fairly reliable long-range shot. He plays so much more within himself compared to last year. What’s not to like?

Another guy that stood out for me yesterday was Daniel Orton. Sure, he fouled too much. What else is new? But when he was on the floor with Cousins, he had to play power forward, which meant that he had to guard Tasmin Mitchell, who most small forwards in this country can’t guard. Mitchell never scored on Orton. Every shot he took was contested and looked uncomfortable. Orton is also getting more comfortable on offense. He showed some nice touch when he got the ball.

Bama is a setup game. Calipari knows it. Just because Bama has blown leads in every SEC game doesn’t mean they’re terrible or untalented. They just don’t know how to win. With Tennessee and Gameday fast approaching, it’s essential that Bama doesn’t get overlooked.

Super Bowl prediction: Colts 39, Saints 37

DeMarcus Cousins won SEC player of the week this past week for putting up 18-12 against Hartford and 18-18 against Louisville. I’m okay with that. The 18-18 game was one of the best performances by a Kentucky player against Louisville since the series resumed in 1983. I’m okay with any accolades DeMarcus gets for his play.

But the real MVP of the Louisville game was Eric Bledsoe.

Everybody remembers the forearm shiver by Cousins in the face of Jared Swopshire. But, speaking purely in terms of the 40 minutes of play and ignoring the extracurricular stuff in the pregame, the tone was set eight seconds in. Louisville had already come out with a ton of swagger, and on the first possession of the game, Reginald Delk shoved Eric Bledsoe into a screen. Bledsoe ran into the guy with enough velocity that a foul was called. Only it didn’t stop with the foul. Delk started yapping, clearly part of the Pitino gameplan of getting into the Kentucky players’ heads. But Bledsoe didn’t back down. He yapped back. It got so intense that Coach Calipari had to take Bledsoe out of the game and put in Ramon Harris. Then Cal said some words that are being discussed all over the web. I can’t read lips or even tell who he was talking to, but somebody was going to kick somebody else’s ass after the game and somebody got the wrong guy. Bledsoe showed Delk and the rest of the Louisville players that neither he nor his teammates would back down from any kind of intimidation tactics. Cousins’ forearm was the physical representation of that statement. If Bledsoe had been in there for that play, there would have been a fight, there’s no doubt in my mind about it.

It didn’t end there, though. As the game progressed and everybody cooled down, I don’t think Kentucky ever came down from the adrenaline rush at the start of the game. While Kentucky had previously done a great job against zone defenses, the shots didn’t fall against Louisville’s zone, and once the shots weren’t falling, the offense became stagnant. Nobody attacked the zone and instead of passing the ball to players, they passed to areas on the court where they expected players to be. People were zigging when they should have been zagging, and eventually, Louisville took the lead. Now this is the part when John Wall took over. Magic Johnson would have said “Winning time is John Wall time!” But it started with Eric Bledsoe. Actually, let me backtrack. Louisville only went up by a point, but they could have gone up by a lot more had it not been for Eric Bledsoe. I mentioned that nobody attacked the zone in the early part of the second half, but Bledsoe did. He dribbled into a hole in the zone and buried a couple of midrange shots. If those shots don’t go down, UK is looking at a scoring drought that could have buried them.

Now then, let me go back to the John Wall sequence of plays. He made three straight shots to kick off the big run, but the two buckets that came in transition actually came off of Eric Bledsoe getting a steal and then another 50/50 ball after a Daniel Orton block. John Wall deserves the credit for rising to the occasion when the outcome was in doubt, but Bledsoe deserves credit for the plays that don’t show up in the box score.

Finally, the final five minutes could have been a lot more interesting had somebody other than Eric Bledsoe been shooting free throws. On a day where good free throw shooters were missing their free throws, Bledsoe stepped up and hit six of six, all in clutch situations. I have no problem with Bledsoe shooting free throws in the clutch if John Wall can’t get the ball. Bledsoe has ice water in the veins.

I hope the SEC teams try the Louisville gameplan on Bledsoe. He’ll make them pay.

Thanks for reading.

I haven’t done one of these in a while. Let’s see if I remember how.

The views I’m about to express are not necessarily those of anybody else but me, but they ought to be, and as a matter of fact, they probably are.

Bob Knight made a comment to the media this morning or last night or whenever he did it, I don’t care. He said something to the effect of “John Calipari is the representation of the lack of ethics in college basketball,” paraphrased to avoid litigation from ESPN. That’s fine. It’s his right as an American citizen to say that. And it is true that John Calipari was the head coach at two programs that had all the wins in Final Four seasons vacated. This cannot be disputed. It happened, and it doesn’t matter if Calipari himself was personally cleared of any wrongdoing in either situation. Perception is reality, and it also doesn’t matter if, in my own personal opinion, that the stuff that happened with the NCAA and Memphis is fishy because burden of proof was on the defense in the case rather than prosecution.

What has Calipari done at Kentucky? Obviously something had to happen to prompt Knight to say what he said. The only thing I can think of is go 10-0 and have the best start of any UK head coach besides Adolph F. Rupp. Also, Calipari beat the tar out of Knight’s old team on their home court. While I don’t know if Knight and Indiana have mended their severed relationship, one has to wonder what prompted him. I’m just throwing out suggestions.

He also wondered why (paraphrasing again) Calipari was still allowed to coach after the vacation of the two seasons. And the lemmings at ESPN First Take wondered this as well. Ignore that Calipari was personally cleared of all wrongdoing and let’s assume that just the opposite happened and he was found completely responsible on all counts. First Take called for a year suspension without pay. Why should Kentucky pay for that when no rules have been broken on their end? If Calipari weren’t at UK, I might be joining Knight in beating that drum, but he’s here, so I’m just defending my coach.

Also, is John Calipari really enough of a cheater, crook and slimeball that he’s the embodiment of sleaze in college basketball or athletics or whatever Knight said? What about *gasp* Indiana’s own Kelvin Sampson? Knight knocked Calipari for putting two schools on probation – which isn’t even true, as only wins got vacated – but his own school is CURRENTLY ON PROBATION. What about Knight’s ESPN colleague Lou Holtz? Here’s a guy who left his teams under clouds of sanctions, only to get opportunity after opportunity to leave the next team under a cloud of sanctions. What about Jim “God” Valvano? If you watched college basketball before 1993, you would know that Valvano was as crooked a coach as there has ever been. Then he got cancer and died, and while that is tragic and while the V Foundation has done a great job funding cancer research, it was as if Jimmy V’s flaws left him as soon as he died. Again, I’m just trying to defend my coach.

In the long run, haters will hate. Calipari has already made his response on his website. I won’t spoil it because it’s premium info, but let’s just say he took the high road. You know why there’s so much backlash against Roy Williams for removing that heckler from his game last week? Much of has to do with all the winning Williams has done over the course of his career. Would this incident have been all over the sports talk radio circuit had Sidney Lowe ejected a heckler from an NC State game? Think about it. The best thing Calipari can do about it is keep on winning. Sandy Bell has this program on the straight and narrow. One of our players could be a practicing magician and pull quarters from people’s ears and Bell would report it to the NCAA. All Cal has to do is keep on winning, and he will.

And one final note to Coach Knight: You may have run a squeaky clean program, but when it comes to ethics and values in college basketball, don’t throw chairs in glass houses.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, and that’s my opinion.

Thanks for reading.

That team would be your 2009-10 Kentucky Wildcats. I haven’t been able to write since the Connecticut game, so I have things to say.

When a team depends as much on freshmen as this Kentucky team does, you usually don’t see that team win the kinds of games like Kentucky did Saturday at Indiana or last Wednesday against Connecticut. While there is such a thing as a good loss (the 1996 SEC Tournament being the best example), you still play to win the game, and those good losses are quite the rarity. This team faced two tests these last two games and passed with flying colors.

Against Connecticut, UK faced foul trouble of the highest level, essentially down to Patrick Patterson and four bench players for the last part of the first half. UConn, with its knack for tough, physical defense, built a decent lead, never really let up on either side of the court, but Kentucky came back and withstood a late punch to hold on for dear life to the win. That Connecticut team is only going to get better, especially once Ater Majok starts playing. What made the second half of that game so great was that they were able to come back with Patrick Patterson out with an injury for a chunk of the half. DeMarcus Cousins and Ramon Harris stepped up in particular, making huge plays during the big run. And of course, John Wall took over Madison Square Garden in a way that I haven’t seen a Knicks player do since Allan Houston went nuts against the Pacers in the ’99 playoffs. If I were Donnie Walsh, I’d trade as much of my roster as necessary to end up with the first pick in the draft so I could select Wall. Has there been a sure thing in the draft as sure as John Wall being a transcendent player? Bill Simmons called him a cross between Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade. That’s insane.

Your typical team of young lions loses the UConn game, at least in December. The Fab Five definitely lose this game in December. This team is different. This team has the potential to be special, and they’re ahead of schedule to realize that potential.

The Indiana game was a huge step in the direction of realization of potential. My most loyal readers know that I have family in Indiana, so it’s never fun to lose to those guys. For starters, how about the student section chanting “Cal’s a cheater” and “SAT?” Now, I’m not trying to claim moral superiority over Indiana fans. Lord knows Kentucky’s gotten in trouble so many times that Sandy Bell is afraid of one of our athletes picking up a lucky penny on the street. However, isn’t Indiana CURRENTLY ON PROBATION? Before Kelvin Sampson, Indiana had only one thing on which to hang their hat: they ran a clean shift. Now, they can’t even claim moral superiority. I don’t go around telling people how to drive their cars. Indiana fans shouldn’t make fun of a program/coach/player for cheating. It’s common sense, Hoosiers.

As for the game itself, this may come off as crazy (in fact, Coach Cal would tell me as such. “You’re CRAZY, Seth. You’re just crazy.”), but it reminded me of a conference road game in the mid-90s. Indiana wanted this game something fierce. If you couldn’t tell that, go back and watch the first five minutes, especially the part when an IU player took a charge on Cousins that nearly brought Tom Crean to violent orgasm. They wanted that game. All of their players were hitting shots in that first half as if they had channeled the spirit of Jimmy Chitwood. They wanted that game. Maurice Creek looked like Reggie Miller. They wanted that game. Then their field goal percentage dipped below 90% and before you knew it, Kentucky had the lead. John Wall dunked on Jordan Hulls – sort of. He actually went around Hulls in midair. The man is a cartoon. Indiana couldn’t have played any better in that first half. If they shoot like that for one half against any Big Ten opponent, they win, end of story. They trailed by one against Kentucky.

Here are some other things I liked about the Indiana game.

The three guys who play small forward on this team combined to score 21 points. That tripled their effort against UConn. When these guys score 15 points or more, it’s going to be a rough night for the other team.

UK doubled Indiana’s rebounding total and tripled their offensive rebounding total. Patterson alone had eight offensive rebounds. That man is a rock. And he’s made a ton of money by staying put.

Wall might have had his best pure point guard game of the season with 11 points, eight assists and one turnover.

Indiana tried multiple defenses, but mostly zoned. They played their zone with the same tenacity that they played it against Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh couldn’t get anything going at all. Kentucky got anything it wanted. Kentucky’s offense was so dominant that if it were the NBA, it would have been a perfect game for one of those Larry Bird experiments like shooting all threes or all lefty shots.

While I don’t know for sure if your typical team of young lions loses the Indiana game, they probably don’t win it by 17. Indiana shot well enough in the first half to deliver a knockout punch to all but a handful of teams (Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Syracuse, Texas and Villanova – that’s the list). Your typical team of young lions might buckle at the first sign of adversity in a hostile environment. This team didn’t, and I couldn’t be more pleasantly surprised, as I figured the UNC/UConn/Indiana stretch would produce at least one loss.

This team is going to be favored in every game they play unless Florida or Tennessee win out until they host Kentucky. It might be preposterous to say Kentucky will go undefeated, but they won’t lose too many as long as everybody stays healthy. And we’ll treat most of those teams like Snookie.

Thanks for reading.

1996.

Not only was it a pretty good year, but that now equals Kentucky’s all-time wins total after the thrilling and emotionally exhausting win over the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a fan, you might think I’m joking when I say this, but it’s completely true: I have never been more nervous during a ballgame as I was during the North Carolina game. This is probably the best regular season win for Kentucky out of conference since December 2005 when Rajon Rondo acted out his own personal fatwa against the Louisville Cardinals. It’s been a long time since December 2005. Let’s see why it went so well.

Patrick Patterson might not have put up his best statistical performance of his career, but it was one of the best performances of his career, and I’ll tell you why: Timing. The constants with Patterson have been defense and rebounding. He’s getting his in those areas regardless of the opponent and that’s why he’ll have a long and prosperous pro career. But it had been tough for him to get the ball in times where the team needed to rely on him as a rock. That didn’t happen yesterday. Times got tough in the second half when John Wall cramped up. Every time Carolina looked close to dagger mode when making their run, there was Patterson, hitting shots, blocking shots, grabbing rebounds, helping out on high screens, doing whatever it took to swing the momentum the other way. My hat’s off to Patrick and he deserves to have a season as special as this one has started off.

John Wall is the man. You got the feeling that the guys would come out tight to start, and that’s what happened as they missed on several good looks. Then John Wall got the ball in transition, had Larry Drew retreating like the French army at the Maginot Line, crossed Drew over and flew in for a huge jam that is currently the background wallpaper on my computer. Then John Wall got the ball in transition, again dribbled right at Drew, only this time drove baseline and threw up some left-handed reverse layup garbage that went in. If the 28-2 run that blew the game open was a Russian-style execution, Wall’s dunk was the pistol whip to the back of the head. The circus shot was the trigger being pulled. And UK was down 9-8 at that point. Didn’t matter at all – the storm was on its way.

The absolute best play of the game happened when Kentucky led by seven early in the second half. Wall was out with leg cramps (Jodie Meeks and Tony Delk had leg cramps as well – all the great ones…) and Kentucky was turning it over at an alarming clip as the Heels chipped into the lead. After another turnover, Carolina ran a great play to get John Henson wide open for an easy dunk. Carolina has been on TV quite a bit this year and I’ve seen Henson dunk on some guys. He might be thin, but he’ll throw it down on you. Daniel Orton met him at the rim and swatted a Spalding imprint on Henson’s forehead. Kentucky got the ball and Orton caught Patterson on a fast break for a dunk. Cats lead by nine. Orton played about as well as a guy can play without scoring a point.

The reasons why this win was so special are the grand schemes, both this season and the overall picture. When a team depends as much on freshmen as Kentucky does, it is unusual for that team to give up that big of a lead and still hold on for a victory. Kentucky wasn’t perfect yesterday. Heck, in the second half, they weren’t even that good at all. But they made enough plays in crucial situations to pick up a win over one of the six good teams in the country this year. And Carolina played pretty well and should be a top 3 team in February and March. That speaks volumes about what this team accomplished by beating them. Also, beating Carolina might end up being the deciding factor in the race to 2000 wins. Downplay it all you want, but if Carolina got there first, they’d probably hang a banner for it next to their Helms title.

Beat UConn.

Thanks for reading.

53 weeks ago, Kentucky endured a sports weekend from hell. The basketball team lost to VMI in a season opener of circus ball. The next day, the football team lost a must-win game against Vanderbilt in some of the worst weather conditions in Commonwealth Stadium history. That game featured a slow start, then when the UK players woke up, special teams mistakes and terrible officiating made sure Vandy would get their first bowl game since Chester Arthur was President or whatever. I’m a trivia dork, but don’t care enough about Vandy football to look up that stat. This weekend was different. It was so good that the Black Eyed Peas could have written that song “I Got A Feeling” about this entire weekend. I’m starting with Thursday because I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up Sam Houston State.

THURSDAY: UK 102, SAM HOUSTON STATE 92

My mother was actually in attendance for this game, her first in nearly a decade. She must have been good luck. Why would that be good luck? Well, when a team hits 18 threes in a game and said team is never in said game and the outcome is never in doubt, somebody was on the side of the good guys. And the game really was never in doubt. The closest Sam Houston State got in the second half was eight points. Kentucky scored 102 points, the first time we’ve scored 100 in a regular season game since the 2003-04 season, which is incredibly hard to believe. Sure, SHS hit 18 threes, but didn’t UK do a great job defending two-point shots?

I make light of it because the UK offense brought the pain. This game was a far better demonstration of the dribble drive than either of the first two, and I’d still only rate about a 3/10 in terms of pure dribble drive. The outside shooting, especially without Darnell Dodson, was a pleasant surprise. Darius Miller shot the ball with a tenfold increase in confidence and Eric Bledsoe hit more threes in that game than I thought he’d make the entire season. DeMarcus Cousins was so good that he made a 20-point, nine-rebound effort from Patrick Patterson look quiet. I know John Wall has been a human highlight reel so far, but Cousins needs more positive attention than what he’s gotten so far. It doesn’t matter if the other team had a bunch of short guys, 27 points and 18 rebounds is a great night at the office, and nobody played harder in that game than DeMarcus Cousins. He dove on the floor more than Brian Cardinal. This made me happy.

SATURDAY: UK 92, RIDER 63

Now this one really pleased me. It’s about time this team blew somebody out. I might be the only one, but this game had me ultra-nervous because of the ability of Rider to shoot the three. They blitzed Mississippi State from three and pretty much owned that game from beginning to end. Ryan Thompson looked to be a matchup nightmare because he’s a small forward with point guard skills. Why do we worry about these things anyway? John Wall really set the tone for this game by getting to the rack at will, scoring and drawing fouls. Throw in a timely bucket by Bledsoe every now and then and Patterson and Daniel Orton cleaning up inside and it was over after the second TV timeout.

You pretty much know what you’re going to get with Patterson every time. He’ll get the big rebound, he’ll follow up misses and just be generally reliable. The 19 points were to be expected, but the 18 rebounds were not. I was hoping he’d crack the 20-rebound mark, just because I’ve only witnessed one (Jared Prickett vs. Arkansas), and I always associate that with a painful loss. So Patterson was just his consistent self. But with two freshman post players, you don’t know what you’ll get from them. Cousins came out and struggled early – no problem, enter Daniel Orton. He came in, established a strong post presence, rebounded and passed well and even showed a nice outside touch. And if you believe Patterson, Wall and Coach Cal, Cousins was the one who insisted that Orton start the second half because he was playing so well. For a kid whose biggest flaw is supposed to be immaturity, this was an amazingly mature and classy move for a freshman to make.

I want to give extra props to Darius Miller and Ramon Harris for the way they guarded Ryan Thompson yesterday. Sure, he hit all 14 of his free throws, but holding the preseason MAAC player of the year to one bucket is fantastic defense, and those two guys are largely responsible for it.

SATURDAY: UK 34, GEORGIA 27

When this game was over, I went to YouTube and looked up a video that I could put in this column to express my excitement. Here’s what I came up with.

It’s the greatest scream in rock history, it usually follows David Caruso removing his shades and making a witty comment about a dead guy, and now it has a new meaning, that being “WE JUST BEAT GEORGIA IN ATHENS!” The last time that happened, I was –9 years old. Jimmy Carter was president. The Arizona Cardinals were in St. Louis. 99% of the UK football players who have played in this decade were not born. Five Von Erich boys were alive, for you wrestling fans out there. I could go on, but let’s just say it’s been a while.

I don’t like talking about the X’s and O’s of football because I’m not good at it. But here are some things I know.

If Sam Maxwell doesn’t make All-SEC, he should. The SEC is loaded with great linebackers. Sam Maxwell has been one of the most active backers in the conference this season. In my opinion, he’s played better than Micah Johnson has, and Johnson has been no slouch. Not only did he get the game-winning interception, but he flew all over the field to make his 11 tackles.

In a close game situation, if Derrick Locke and Randall Cobb get an adequate number of combined touches, they will not let Kentucky lose the game, end of story. I’m not even sure that the talented bunch of 2007 seniors had the ability to will the team to win like Locke and Cobb do.

Morgan Newton has yet to have a game where he has blown up the stat book the way DeMarcus Cousins does in basketball, but he just wins games. And he makes clutch throws too. LaRod King is turning out to be a heck of a receiver. I can’t wait to see the Newton-King connection for the next three years.

Corey Peters was a terror at the line of scrimmage. How often do you see a defensive tackle blow through his gap and swipe an attempted handoff from the quarterback, especially against a Georgia offensive line? Peters was the best lineman on the field last night.

How the defensive line did it, I have no idea, but Joe Cox had shown all year that if you applied a little bit of pressure, he’d throw picks. The line applied pressure and Cox threw picks.

Matt Roark deserves props for falling on that fumbled kickoff to start the second half. Kentucky always tries to pick that ball up and run with it. It is as consistent as death and taxes. Roark did the right thing and swung the momentum so much in Kentucky’s favor that Georgia didn’t really recover from it.

My favorite part of the game were the shots of the Georgia fans after the Shane McCord interception (another awesome play). Georgia fans don’t think their team should ever lose to Kentucky in football, and why would they? We’ve been playing football for decades and until last night, had only beaten Georgia ten times. They were incredulous, and once the Bulldogs fumbled at the goal line, they filed out of there in droves. Tom Leach said that it was the fastest he’d ever seen a road stadium turn off its scoreboard.

I can only hope to have another sports weekend like this. Maybe if UK plays basketball on Super Bowl Sunday and the Vikings make the Super Bowl I’ll get to do it again.

Thanks for reading. Beat Tennessee and prove me wrong.

Let’s just go ahead and get all the negatives out of the way, because it’s never fun to close with negatives and leave a bad taste in my loyal readers’ mouths.

Allowing Miami to shoot 15-26 from three is just awful, and while it is true that some of the shots were contested and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about guys making contested threes, there were still too many good looks. When a guy like Nick Winbush hits the first three the way he did (in, out and back in – the quintessential “I’m on fire” bounce), you have to deny him the ball. That’s everybody’s fault, not just the wing guys assigned to guard Winbush. When a team depends as much on the high screen as Miami does, it’s up to the defense to communicate on those screens so nobody gets lost. The only way this will improve with such a young team is practice, practice, practice.

John Wall and Eric Bledsoe will quickly learn that they are not in high school anymore. A majority of their turnovers have been the result of just trying to dribble through people. That’s all fine and good at the high school level, but Miami is not the Washington Generals, and not even Marcus Haynes could dribble into crowds and do something productive like John and Eric tried to do last night. Again, the biggest factor in changing this is time. Defensively, they need to watch some game tapes of Cliff Hawkins. Far too often Wall would allow his man to drive by him so he could attempt to slap the ball away from behind. Against competent Division I guards, this strategy will work probably once out of 20 times. Stay in front of your man, guys. It will take you places.

Free throw shooting was bad, no dancing around it. But this one actually doesn’t concern me as much. John Wall and Patrick Patterson are better FT shooters than what they shot last night. Then Bledsoe, Cousins and Orton all missed either an and-1 or the front end of a bonus. The one I’m most worried about is Patterson, but he shot them well his first two years when free throws weren’t a part of practice, and he’ll start making them again.

The best thing about these negatives is that all of them are correctable, and many of the mistakes were mistakes of inexperience.

What I liked the most about this game was the fire with which Kentucky played in coming back against a hot opponent. My game MVP was DeMarcus Cousins. He got two quick fouls, the second of which was a pretty tough call, then he got upset and went to the bench. That’s something we’re all just going to have to deal with. The best news is that he didn’t let that adversely affect his game in the second half, quite the contrary, actually. Six offensive rebounds and ten second half points might not seem like much, but everything was timely, and when the chips were down and Miami kept answering runs, Cousins took over.

I loved what we got out of the small forward position last night. Darius Miller hit some clutch shots during the comeback, plus he guarded Nick Winbush during the last five or so minutes and held him scoreless. This must not be ignored. Darnell Dodson came into the game with his team down 18 and immediately made three threes. He was the biggest reason why that 18-point lead became three points in less than five minutes. He’s a great offensive player, and he just has to play more. I don’t know why he was one of the last players off the bench last night, but I’m just a guy on the internet, so all I can do is speculate.

Last year’s team would have let Miami blow them out. When the times got toughest (down 36-18), any of the post-Chuck Hayes UK teams would have folded up the tent and lost by 8-12 points. That’s why I’m so happy about last night’s game. There could be no better “kick in the pants” game than last night. When it was time to crank up the intensity, the team cranked it up on both sides of the court. Miller deserves huge props for holding Winbush scoreless in crunch time. Cousins and Patterson owned the glass. Wall plays with the kind of fire you rarely see from freshmen, and when he got the ball in a tie game with five seconds to go, I knew he’d score. This will be so much more of a learning experience than if they had blown out Miami, even though they really should have blown out Miami. But if you’re going to have a learning experience game, better to have it against Miami than North Carolina or Connecticut, right?

That’s what I thought.

Thanks for reading.

One down, 39 to go.

If you were to grade Kentucky’s performance in this game, an accurate grade would be an “I” because the team is incomplete without John Wall. But since that’s not any fun, I’ll go with a C+. There were too many turnovers and the team screwed around in the last two minutes enough to let Morehead beat the spread. But all in all, the rest of what happened last night was pretty much what I expected. We’ve got a young team, Morehead has an experienced team and it showed.

The thing I enjoyed the most about the game last night was the fast start. When Patrick Patterson came out and hit that three, it seemed like a weight was lifted off the shoulders of the ungodly huge crowd. And it looked like it gave the players a lift because they really picked up the defensive intensity after that. Kenneth Faried ended up having a pretty good game, but he got overwhelmed down low to start the game with all those blocks. Combine that with everybody in a UK uniform looking to Patterson and Darnell Dodson hitting some insane shots and it was off and running. Morehead didn’t get closer than six points behind for the rest of the game, and that was late in the first half. Did you feel worried? Be honest. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being “Joker Phillips in the 4th quarter of a tight game” panic, you shouldn’t have been anything higher than a 2.

Coach Cal said after the exhibitions that he might have to end up feeding the post this season more than he ever did at Memphis. This might have contributed to some of the turnovers from last night, but it still worked like you would want it to work. Faried is an outstanding player, especially for the OVC. Patterson really seemed to frustrate him early on. DeMarcus Cousins and Daniel Orton also did a nice job although they combined for nine fouls. The defensive footwork necessary to avoid such foul trouble will get there, but in the meantime, we might have to fight some growing pains with those guys.

Eric Bledsoe is built like a burlap sack full of bricks, and more than anything he did last night, I was impressed with his brute strength. He had a rough first half, so Coach Cal must have had an individual “Come to Jesus” meeting with Eric at halftime. The play that stood out for me was when he drove into the paint with no numbers, got fouled by three different guys and still got a shot up in the air. The shot didn’t go in, but he drew the foul. My point is, how many point guards have the strength to even get that shot up when three guys are grabbing on their arms? You could probably count it on one hand.

Don’t ream Darius Miller, people. He just had a bad game. It doesn’t mean he should be relegated to Svoboda duty. And when Darnell Dodson plays the way he did last night, it doesn’t matter as much if Darius or any other wing or guard has a bad game. I really enjoy watching Dodson play. His game would probably make Joe B. Hall cringe, but you want a guy with a reputation as a shooter and scorer to have the utmost confidence in his shot. He’s going to take some bad shots this year, just get used to it. But he’s more than likely going to make some of them, so get used to that as well.

I’m looking forward to Monday’s game like no other regular season game than ever before. That’s how pumped up I am for John Wall’s first game. Bledsoe set the freshman debut scoring record last night with 24 points. Considering guys like Rex and Mashburn couldn’t pull that off, I’d say that’s quite an accomplishment. But it also wouldn’t surprise me if that record only stood for two more days. Miami would probably lose to Morehead on a neutral court. They were a lower level MAC team last year and lost some significant contributors from that squad. So even though I like Charlie Coles as a coach, I think his team will witness the full power of our arsenal.

Thanks for reading. Go Cats, beat Vandy.

Well, we’ve had a couple exhibition games to let everything sink in. I’m ready to bring back the World’s Greatest Postgame Analysis, but last year proved that doing the WGPA for exhibition games is pointless because VMI could come in at game 1 and destroy you. One could argue that without John Wall and with Eric Bledsoe not at 100%, Morehead could come in and do the very same thing. After all, they are the defending OVC champions and are not breaking in as many new players or a completely new system like Kentucky is.

Read this very carefully: It is time to get rid of that Smith/Gillispie attitude that’s been a toxin injected into the fanbase for the last ten years. Those days are done. If I had to guess how the team will look, I’d say that we’ll play better than we did against Campbellsville, but not as well as we did against Clarion.

There is one thing I’d like to point out about the progress between Campbellsvile and Clarion: dribble drive looked a whole lot better, and while John Wall had a lot to do with this, so did the play of Darius Miller. If you watched the Clarion game closely, you would have noticed that on many of the plays where Kentucky scored, the motion was started by Darius Miller taking his man off the dribble and kicking out. An assertive Darius Miller is an extremely important element to a successful 2009-10 season, so hopefully we got the first look at that in the Clarion game.

One thing that was surprising was that I got more than one “What’s wrong with Patrick Patterson?” after these exhibitions. What’s wrong with Patrick Patterson? Is there really anything wrong with him? It looks to me like he’s just trying to adjust to a new system. At this stage of the game, the DDMO is like a new pair of pants to these players. You first put on the pants and they seem uncomfortable, but then you put them on a couple more times and they’re the most comfortable pants you’ve ever worn. Right now, everybody is in that first stage. They’ve just bought the pants and they’re trying them on, and it’s most evident with the upperclassmen, most notably Patterson. Another thing to consider about Patterson is that the guys he’s played against in these exhibition games would have had a hard time cracking the starting five for Hickory High in “Hoosiers” – not because of the talent level, but rather their size. Don’t you think Patrick can take advantage of being guarded by bigger guys in the DDMO? I know I do. And finally, if he can’t adjust well enough to Coach Cal’s liking, he’s said that if push comes to shove, he’ll feed the post and let Patterson work with his back to the basket as only he can. What’s that? A coach can make offensive adjustment? What sorcery is this?

So that brings me to the season outlook. Right now, I have us losing exactly 4.5 games. Sure, this isn’t fair, but let me explain.

I say there will be two surefire losses. One of them will happen in the December stretch of North Carolina, Connecticut and Indiana. Obviously, it would be terrible to lose to any of them, but it will be tough for this team to survive this stretch without one blemish. Since we’re only up two games on North Carolina in the race to 2000 wins and my family in Indiana can be unbearable when the Hoosiers beat the Cats, I guess the preference would be Uconn, if I were to even have a preference. The other loss will probably happen in Starkville when we play Mississippi State. Any preseason poll that doesn’t have Mississippi State in the top ten is useless to me. That’s how good they should be. Jarvis Varnado is the shot-blockingest scoundrel I’ve ever seen play the game. The four guards that led MSU to the SEC Tournament title can all fill it up and go off for 25 points on any given night. If Renardo Sidney gets cleared, the Bulldogs won’t have a weak link on their squad, as if it were easy to win in Starkville in the first place.

The other 2.5 losses come from five toss-up games where I just split the difference. Those games were at home against Louisville, at LSU, at Vanderbilt, at South Carolina and at Tennessee. Louisville will be awfully good if Rick Pitino plays Peyton Siva more than Edgar Sosa. LSU will be down on talent, but I’ve only seen Kentucky blow out LSU in Baton Rouge once, and Trent Johnson is the best pure coach at LSU in my lifetime. The games at Vandy, South Carolina and Tennessee are all division games in hostile environments against the best competition in the division (sorry, Florida and Georgia – just my opinion).

With that in mind, let’s take a look at my season predictions.

SEC East

1. Kentucky
2. Vanderbilt
3. Tennessee
4. South Carolina
5. Florida
6. Georgia

SEC West

1. Mississippi State
2. Ole Miss
3. Alabama
4. LSU
5. Arkansas
6. Auburn

NCAA Tournament bids: Kentucky, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Tennessee and whoever has a better record between South Carolina and Alabama.

ALL-SEC

1st team

Kenny Boynton – Florida
Devan Downey – South Carolina
Tasmin Mitchell – LSU
Patrick Patterson – Kentucky
Tyler Smith – Tennessee
Jarvis Varnado – Mississippi State
John Wall – Kentucky
Chris Warren – Ole Miss

2nd team

Wayne Chism – Tennessee
DeMarcus Cousins – Kentucky
Ravern Johnson – Mississippi State
AJ Ogilvy – Vanderbilt
Jeffery Taylor – Vanderbilt
Trey Thompkins – Georgia
Michael Washington – Arkansas
Terrico White – Ole Miss

All-Freshmen team

Kenny Boynton – Florida
DeMarcus Cousins – Kentucky
John Jenkins – Vanderbilt
Renardo Sidney – Mississippi State (if cleared)
John Wall – Kentucky

Coach of the Year: Anthony Grant, Alabama

Freshman of the Year: John Wall, Kentucky

Player of the Year: John Wall, Kentucky

Thanks for reading.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, and this has been my opinion – nothing more, nothing less.

Thanks to ukathletics.com for transcribing this so I didn’t have to. I’m still high from the UK and Vikings games. This is from their site, but it needs to be posted on as many sites as possible as far as I’m concerned. Forgive any mistakes in syntax, but I wanted to post it as transcribed.

On behalf of Ellen, Erin, Megan, and Bradley, I want to thank the entire family of the Big Blue Nation for your warmth and hospitality. you have made us feel like we have been in the commonwealth forever.

A vision that sees the you, greatest fans in all of sports once again puffing your chests and chanting in whatever language you choose, and however loudly you want to shout it, Go Big blue! Go big blue! Go Big Blue!

Now I’m sure detractors will say that this was the biggest serving of Kool-Aid in the history of sports, and it might be. But at least for one night, I’ve never been thirstier for Kool-Aid, and it tasted great.

24-17, War Wildcats.