When the schedule was released in August, two weeks of play got special attention. One was the gauntlet in December that went North Carolina –> Connecticut –> Indiana. The other was presumed to be the roughest patch of the SEC schedule: Tennessee –> Mississippi State –> Vanderbilt. Upon the release of the schedule, I predicted 1.5 losses in the tough week in February – a win over Tennessee, a loss at MSU and a toss-up game against Vanderbilt.

It feels good to be proven wrong by this bunch.

Still, it isn’t like the sweep of February Gauntlet Week revealed Kentucky to be this juggernaut that’s going to blaze through the big dance like the 1993 team. This is a flawed basketball team, and it has been from day one. However, the shining light in all this is that the other top teams in the country are every bit as flawed as this one is.

So what has the sweep of Tennessee, MSU and Vandy taught us?

1. The light might have come on for Patrick Patterson.

Patrick couldn’t have picked a better time to play his three best games of the season. I said after Mississippi State that Patterson played the best game of his life in Starkville, but Saturday against Vanderbilt wasn’t too far off from that one. Vandy has some tough guys on their team. Patterson was the only guy who consistently gave the effort to outfight swarms of Commodores on the boards. He still doesn’t get the ball enough on offense, and again, I can understand somewhat because of DeMarcus Cousins being so good, but when he does get it, good things happen. His bank shot over AJ Ogilvy was an underrated clutch shot, and the corner three on the broken play might have been the most clutch play anybody on the team has made since John Wall’s drive against UConn. He has responded to the physicality of those three teams, rather than backing down from the challenges like he did against South Carolina. If he continues this level of play, this team is going to the Final Four.

2. Shooting is a huge problem.

If this team isn’t getting lots of dunks and layups, they’re laying some bricks. They can’t shoot. They can’t shoot threes. They definitely can’t shoot free throws. Quite frankly, it’s a wonder this hasn’t cost the team more losses. It wasn’t really the prime cause for the loss to South Carolina. But it will cost the team before the season is over.

3. This team can play defense if it wants to.

The last ten minutes against Tennessee, the last three minutes and all of overtime against Mississippi State and all 40 minutes against Vanderbilt were examples of championship-caliber defense. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened enough, and the main reason is effort. The freshmen have yet to adjust to the concept that you have to play balls out on defense for 40 minutes. This is understandable to a point, but that point’s almost up because it’s almost March. The good news is that they have shown that they can. The only question is whether or not they will. That means no gambling, no going for the highlight reel block when forcing a tough shot is more practical, fighting through the high screen, all that stuff. The defense in the Vanderbilt game brought hope because nobody in the SEC executes their offense better than Vandy, and that offense doesn’t consist of “run shot clock down to five seconds, launch 30-foot shot and pray” like so many SEC teams have done this year.

4. If it’s a one-possession game, the team with John Wall will win that game.

I don’t have to explain this. I’ll take my chances with John Wall making the clinching play. He’s done it over and over, and save for a couple free throw misses in Nashville, he’s yet to fail.

A message to Mississippi State fans: Don’t poke the bear with a stick. He’ll go off for 19 points and 10 rebounds against the best interior defender in the country.

I don’t blame State for pulling off all the stops. Beating Kentucky probably would have locked them into the tournament, barring a monumental collapse. When a team’s best win is Ole Miss, another bubble team, you can bet that team is going to be desperate when you come into their house in prime time. Despite the suspension of Ravern Johnson, last night was the best I’ve seen Mississippi State play in the dozen or so games I have watched them. According to some State fans, Johnson being out was addition by subtraction because he is a defensive liability and a streaky shooter. We can just agree to disagree on this.

With three minutes to go, Kentucky trailed by seven and was getting progressively worse with each possession. In other words, it was a near replica of the loss to South Carolina, except the opponent was better. So what made the difference in the outcome of this game relative to South Carolina?

To me, it’s as simple as this: Patrick Patterson played his best game as a Kentucky Wildcat last night.

As maligned as Patterson’s play has been during the conference schedule, last night was as close to the perfect game as Patrick will ever play in his life. He made great moves in the post. He rebounded with ferocity. He took charges. He blocked a few shots. He hit the most clutch shot he’s ever hit on that baseline jumper that tied the score with 40 seconds to go. And while that would be good enough in most games, he did two other things that really separated this performance from any of his other great games.

He called for the ball. He demanded it, got it and did good things with it. It was the first time he had done that all year. I understand anybody becoming a spectator when DeMarcus Cousins is blowing up the SEC and putting up insane numbers every game, but Kentucky needed Patterson last night and he was there for his teammates in a huge way.

The single most important thing he did was cranking up the aggression something fierce. There was no indecisiveness when he got the ball in the corner. He immediately knew what he wanted to do, and when he got it in the post against Jarvis Varnado, it was as if he were one step ahead of him, and that’s how he was able to draw the third and fourth foul on Varnado in about five seconds of game time. Compared to Patterson’s other two games against Mississippi State and Varnado, the jumping jack center didn’t make much of an impact. He didn’t make that much of an impact when he was in the game, but once he fouled out of the game, Kentucky’s size took over in the paint and on the glass. Varnado was the only guy MSU had that could go toe to toe with Patterson or Cousins for rebounds. Once he fouled out, the rebounds were the good guys’ for the taking. Patterson bears the most responsibility for making this happen.

Poise in the clutch can’t be overlooked. You’d have to go back to 1998 to find a team that I believe could have completed the comeback from seven points down and three minutes to go. The best thing about the comeback was that everybody on the floor had a huge role in it.

67-60
67-63 – D. Liggins three (J. Wall assist)
67-63 – P. Patterson block
67-65 – E. Bledsoe layup (J. Wall assist)
67-65 – Offensive foul – D. Bost (D. Cousins takes charge)
67-67 – P. Patterson jumper (D. Liggins assist)

And once the comeback was complete, Bledsoe played his only good defensive possession of the game and forced Barry Stewart into a shot that the Kodi Augustus banked three from the elbow thought was terrible. It had been a while since the team had had to make clutch plays when trailing. They failed the test against South Carolina, but passed with flying colors last night.

Now if only they can figure out how to guard the high screen…

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