Let’s address the turnover problem first. I’ve heard lots of people blame the coaching staff for the turnovers, but in my opinion, the only thing the coaches can do about that is sub for players who are struggling in an attempt to fix the problem. Only problem was, everybody was turning it over for Kentucky in Vegas. I feel perfectly justified in criticizing a coach if I feel I can come up with a solution to a problem or figure out an obvious coaching error like playing two post players against VMI. I can’t come up with a solution to the turnover problem. Maybe there are some drills that can be run in practice to help the guys take better care of the ball, but there’s no guarantee how those will pay off in game situations, and for all I know, they’re running those drills already. My point is, the coach can’t prevent the players from turning it over. The solution to the problem lies in every single player on the team. Remember last year when Joe and Ramel were playing like knuckleheads. Once the SEC schedule began, in that first game against Vanderbilt, the light came on in both seniors, and they played like world-beaters for the rest of that year. This is what needs to happen with our ball handlers. Once it does, this will be an extremely dangerous team.

Now I want to take care of this DeAndre Liggins situation. There’s a good chance that the only people who know what this thing was all about are Liggins and Coach Gillispie. If reports are accurate, Gillispie told Liggins to come into the game in the second half of the Kansas State game and Liggins refused to go in. That’s why Mike Porter played the entire second half against K-State. According to Eric Crawford (whose blog on the subject I strongly recommend), the decision was based on personal reasons. Well, whatever those reasons were, things must have worked themselves out well enough for Liggins to play most of the second half against West Virginia last night. I’ve heard that the players may have voted on the decision as to whether or not Liggins would play, but don’t write that one down in blood. Maybe the situation was being blown out of proportion. Maybe Liggins and Gillispie worked things out in between games. It was certainly a bad judgment by Liggins to do what he did, and at some point, comeuppance needs to happen, most likely in the form of lots of running. Regardless of what’s to come, I’m glad that enough peace was made for Liggins to play the minutes he did against West Virginia.

The one thing about having a team with as big a flaw as Kentucky’s turnover problem is that positives can often get ignored. In the case of Kentucky, nobody is talking about the defense, which is unfortunate, because it is the big reason why this team won its first preseason tournament since the ’96 Alaska Shootout. Kansas State had two extremely quick guards in Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen. They couldn’t get by their man when they had the ball. Kentucky’s help defense was great in closing out on shooters. In both games, the other team had a very hard time getting anything going in their halfcourt sets, especially Kansas State. When teams tried to pound it inside, they found the going extremely difficult. Every time it looked like one of our leads was going to slip away, there was a huge steal. Meeks, Harris, Liggins, Miller, Stevenson and Harrellson all had huge steals in the clutch. This team is light years ahead of where last year’s team was defensively, at least at the end of November.

The double double recorded by Josh Harrellson might be the most important thing that happened all weekend. For one thing, it showed that Josh was willing to bang down low, grab rebounds and get garbage points. I always get a bit skeptical of the ability of a guy to play physical ball down low when he misses as many bunnies as Harrellson has missed, but Josh served up a huge plate of crow in my direction against the Mountaineers. Maybe more importantly, it should light a fire under Perry Stevenson, who has played as soft as my belly after Thanksgiving dinner since the VMI game. I have confidence that the light will turn on with Stevenson because it did last year after a bad start. This should be a big motivating factor for the thin man, knowing that even though he’s a good post defender, he sat pretty much the entire second half because his play has been so weak.

What was DeSean Butler thinking drawing the ire of Patrick Patterson? For those of you who didn’t get to see it, Patterson and West Virginia’s Wellington Smith exchanged pleasantries at a dead ball, but the situation resolved itself. Then Butler and Patterson started yapping, and Patrick looked angrier than I’ve ever seen him, and given how horrible his teammates are at feeding the post, I can definitely see him getting angry in practice. It took a while to calm Patterson down, but once he did, he took over the game. On the next UK offensive possession, Patterson got an offensive rebound and an and1. On defense, he crashed the boards and got any 50/50 ball that was within his reach. The lesson in all this: do not fury Patrick Patterson.

I loved the toughness of this team when faced with adversity. It would have been easy for them to close up shop when faced with the 12-point deficit early in the second half against WVU. Instead, Coach Gillispie channeled the spirit of Adolph Rupp and went with what essentially mounted to an iron man five of Liggins, Meeks, Harrellson, Miller and Patterson, and those guys willed their way back into the game. Kentucky got seemingly every loose ball down the stretch against WVU after giving up way too many rebounds the previous night against K-State. They went 17-17 from the FT line against West Virginia in the second half. Coach did a masterful job of substituting in the second half. The offense for defense subs that occurred after Meeks’ fourth foul were all great. The way he gave Patterson short breathers before the TV timeouts is one of the best strategies I’ve ever seen, and I don’t see it too often in college ball. Those breathers could have made a difference in the play of Patterson down the stretch, as he looked like he had fresher legs than the WVU bigs. I could keep pointing out these things, but the piece is getting a bit long. Anyway, you get the idea. This team’s toughness increased by a large exponent from halftime of the Carolina game.

Tom Leach is the man, but if you get a chance, go to Yahoo and check out the radio broadcast of the Vegas games. Neil Price worked the games in Tom’s place because Tom had to go to an abortion in Knoxville, and I thought he did a great job.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, and these late games are killing my sleep schedule.