How bad was this weekend? Let’s just say that when I turned on the water this morning to take a shower, I was a bit surprised when the water didn’t turn into blood.
I still think that Billy Gillispie and his staff are the right people for this job. Recruiting is going exceptionally well, and I still feel like the program is on a general upswing because of that recruiting success. However, they were awful on Friday. I know Gillispie likes to prove points to his team, and I’m all for it. But I draw the line when proving points to his team comes at the expense of wins and losses in the record book. The coaches got steamrolled by the VMI staff. I can’t sugarcoat it either. It was that bad. I say it was worse than Gardner-Webb. It was as if they just decided to skip the scouting report for the week and thought they could win on pure talent. They didn’t bother to play defense, and the coaches made one fundamental error that cost the team the game – they insisted on playing two post players at the same time. VMI doesn’t even have one post player on their team. How are two post guys supposed to rotate and defend guys that are so much quicker than them? It would be hard enough for one guy to do it on his own, but asking both Patterson and Stevenson to do it was asking too much and pretty much impossible.
Another huge problem that won’t be fixed anytime soon is the point guard situation. I applaud Michael Porter for being an “effort guy” that earns the affection of Coach Gillispie in practice, but God willing, after the first five minutes of Friday’s game, the Porter experiment at point guard is over. Heck, I’m sure even Mike would argue that he’d rather be a spot-up shooter than a point. VMI didn’t even need to trap him to take the ball away from him. As for DeAndre Liggins, I’m not as concerned, but he is still a freshman. His mistakes are what we would call freshman mistakes. Most box scores don’t measure this for college games, but I’d imagine that Liggins and Darius Miller were the only two players on the team that had a positive +/-, meaning that when they were on the floor, we outscored them. However, sending a freshman point guard into that situation for his first game was a recipe for disaster. Scheduling VMI for the first game of the year was a recipe for disaster. When the point guard situation is as dire as it is, the one thing that doesn’t need to happen is having the first game against a team against whom it is very difficult to dictate the pace. Kentucky absolutely could not dictate the pace against VMI, and that’s why Patrick Patterson played poorly – that pace does not allow for the big guys to get the ball very often.
One good thing that came from the game was that Social Darwinism kicked in and the cream rose to the top. Six guys showed that they were worthy of playing many minutes – Liggins, Meeks, Miller, Patterson, Stevenson and Harris. When UK came back in the second half and took the lead, any combination of those guys were on the floor. Meeks in particular was amazing, and I’m glad he’s been given such a huge green light to launch. This loss was a total coaching breakdown, and while I would never say that these guys have forgotten how to coach (nothing could be further from the truth), I’m sick of losing these games. I’m sick of UK being the lead story on SportsCenter and watching those East Coast pricks laugh at us and throw the race card around. I don’t care if we win out, this will haunt us forever. With all of that said, though, here’s something crazy. I’m not predicting a win over Carolina on Tuesday, but if it were to happen, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Any offense and defense that isn’t the three-ring circus that VMI ran will be a welcome change for these guys, and I guarantee you they’ll look ten times better than they did in the last game.
I still think that Rich Brooks and his staff are the right people for this job. Recruiting is going exceptionally well, and I still feel like the program is on a general upswing because of that recruiting success. However, they were awful last night. The big problem is the same problem these guys have had all year except against Louisville and Georgia – they don’t know that the game starts in the first half. Kentucky had one first down in the first half, and that was on a fake punt. That’s unacceptable. Joker Phillips completely deviated from the running game that was so successful, which put the game squarely in the hands of Randall Cobb and the greenest receiving corps in FBS. Even against Vanderbilt, this is a recipe for disaster. Look at the two passes that DJ Moore picked off. On both throws, Moore jumped the route while the receivers just waited for the ball to come to them. Those are errors of inexperience.
As for the defense, it’s the same play over and over: rush the front four, drop everybody else back. It’s the most vanilla scheme in the world, and the only reason why it looked so good in the first half of the season was because the personnel was so good and they were all completely healthy. Against Vanderbilt, they weren’t motivated until they had given up 17 points. Vanderbilt was motivated, and that was the difference in the outcome. Basically, Bobby Johnson executed his mission and Rich Brooks didn’t. Now there were some things that happened in the second half that were out of his control, like the personal foul penalty on Micah Johnson for roughing the passer. That was an abysmal call that killed all the momentum Kentucky had built in the second half, but it shouldn’t have mattered. Kentucky was talented enough to beat Vanderbilt, and they didn’t because they forgot to show up at the beginning. I’ll reserve judgment on the Tennessee game until I see what Tennessee does against Vanderbilt this week. I’m sure against us, they’ll turn into the Tennessee Titans instead of the Tennessee Volunteers.
The weekend isn’t over yet, so if you’re a Wildcat fan and have favorite pro teams, start worrying.
I’m Seth Stogsdill, and I fear for Adrian Peterson’s safety.