Penn was hot from three but we kept giving them wide open shots in the corner off of screens. Cal was bewildered on why we kept giving them the same wide open shots. You don’t expect a team to be that hot and it’s always easy to nitpick when you are getting beat but we allowed them to be comfortable.
The crowd sat on its hands in shock. Fans refused to rock the house until UK went on a run making an easy environment to do what they wanted.
Our young team seemed stunned as well and played very tight and making mistakes they typically do not make. This may have been a good experience for them to feel the surprise punch in the mouth and trust in their team to respond.
I liked the direction they went about it once they saw their threes were not falling. They took it inside for easy dunks. Even though we were trading threes for 2’s at this point, we continued to take advantage of our size and take the higher percentage shot, forcing Penn to continue to nail threes to continue their route. They were up to the task for only a limited time and the Cats go onto a 12-0 run to go into the half to lead 33-32. After we threw our punches and took the lead they were down for the count the rest of the game.
Cats continued their run into the second half beating them 53-30 in the second half, mainly from our hot hot shooting. After being down 12, Cats went on to hit 22 of their final 28 shots. Talk about the difference between most of the first half and the rest of the matchup…
Cats continued to do well from the free throw line shooting 14-17 (82.4%). Harrelson, Liggins, Knight, and Polson went 8-8 from the line. Jones and Lamb were the only ones to miss shooting a combined 6-9 from the line.
Darius Miller received player of the game with 11 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assist, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. Shooting 1-1 from three. Miller was Mr. Do It All tonight, a little of this and a little of that. Great to see Miller playing well.
Miller after the game was asked what he can instill on the freshman on how to get ready for conference play. He pointed out that every night is a 40 minute battle and you have got to come ready to play.
He also mentioned how Cal really let them have it at half and they came out and responded accordingly.
Knight led all UK scorers with 22 points, Lamb-16.
Harrellson-12 points, his fourth double double of his career, 2nd double double in a row with 11 rebounds and 6 blocks. He is becoming a threat in the paint, leaving teams wondering how in the world to prepare for him when they have to deal with everyone else...
His blocks are great. What I got onto Orton last year with his monster dunks, it looked great when he slammed into the stands...but what was the result? Other team got the ball back. Harrellson is blocking like you should by keeping the ball in play, giving our defense a chance at picking up the loose ball.
Other scorers: Jones-10, Liggins-7, Vargas-4, Hood-2, and Polson-2.
Jones hasn’t been playing at the level he can consistently lately. 12 against Louisville, 18 against Coppin St., 11 against Winthrop.
Granted against Louisville he saw lots of double teams and made the right decision to dump it off to Harrellson for the easy score but Cal knows he can dominate and wants him to do it. We are seeing flashes of what he can do but he needs to dominate for 40 minutes.
Cats shot 32-56 (57.1%) from the field, 8-17 (47.1%) from three; we won the rebound battle 36-15, tied with 12 turnovers for each team.
Cats now begin SEC play. It is a down conference but for UK It is misleading since UK will have to play the other 4 top teams in the conference: Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Vanderbilt twice. Tennessee and Florida have been struggling but the talent is there and they will bring it against UK.
Playing on the road against those four teams will likely be our four toughest SEC games. UK starts off with one of these four toughest matchups playing at Georgia on Saturday @ 4 Eastern.
Georgia is 11-2 with only losses to #15 Notre Dame and previously ranked Temple. Best wins against Colorado, UAB and Georgia Tech.
Georgia is not known for their three point shooting but they have some very good bigs who can play well inside and rebound well. It will be a tough matchup for the Cats.
Tomorrow at 7 eastern be sure to see our #11 Lady Cats @ #1 Duke. This game will be broadcasted on ESPNU.
Cal post game comments: You have to give Penn credit. They muscled us up in the post and we didn’t fight back. We left corner shooters open four times, that’s 12 points.
Cal doesn’t want them to deny, he wants them to try to steal it. If they have 12 passes, try to get 2 steals out of it.
Excited about Brandon Knight’s play, running the team. Happy with Liggins play as well. If it isn’t for Harrellson we are down 20 in the first half. Vargas wouldn’t grab the ball with 2 hands and it went out of bounds, and out he went. Harrellson is leading the SEC in rebounding; Cal continued to show his praise for Josh’s play.
Not so much praise for Vargas…if he doesn’t get his act together he will either ride the bench next year or be departing…it’s not even his bad shooting that is driving Cal crazy, it is the lack of effort.
On Jones, he is one of the best players in the country and not seeing a ton of minutes for what you would expect for someone with his talents. Cal pointed out that his will is stronger than Jones will. If a player isn’t going to do what they are suppose to do then they won’t play.
Cal could just play him but Jones will not develop like he should. If you demand a lot, they will give you a lot. If you accept mediocrity then that is exactly what they will give you. Cal is trying to raise the bar.
It isn’t about mistakes, it’s about effort. If you show you can’t give effort, then you are coming out. You can’t win without giving effort. The bench tends to be quite persuasive. He pointed out that Jones can put his head above the rim, so how in the world is Harrellson able to get so many more rebounds then him…effort. Cal pointed out that Jones is a great kid and is just learning.
UK missed 18-28 then went hot. Cal mentioned that if you are playing defense you will end up getting good shots on the other end. It had a lot to do with adjusting with what Penn through at us. UK did a lot more dribble drive in the second half and Penn couldn’t matchup with it.
Lamb made some big shots and is playing well. He left corners in the 1st half but he is a freshman.
Cal said he is pleased with this team. They are not where they need to be in a month but at this point in the season, they are doing well. Called out how many road games we have had and how we have prepared for this.
He went on to comment on our schedule: non conference we have one of the toughest schedules and since we are not playing every team twice, we will have one of the toughest schedules by season end.
Cal mentioned he recruited Jerome Allen because he went to same high school as one of his assistants. Cal said we can’t lose a recruit to Penn because Penn doesn’t have scholarships at the time for basketball players. He went and worked for the mayor and that is how Penn got him.
His last comment was pointed out that this Georgia game will be a hard one.
One other interesting score tonight, St. John’s takes down #13 Georgetown 61-58. This is St. John’s first win over a ranked team this season and it isn’t going to get any easier. Check out their next games: #15 Notre Dame, #4 Syracuse, #15 Notre Dame, #23 Louisville (only cupcake game), #25 Cincinnati, #13 Georgetown (rematch @Georgetown), then #1 Duke. Now that is a tough stretch…
Go Cats beat the Blue Devils and then beat the Dawgs! .
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