Cats take down Ole Miss 75-66 to improve to 23-8 on the year and get their revenge on the Rebels. Cats will now take on Alabama 1 eastern on ABC. Bama is right on the bubble and needs to beat UK to feel comfortable about getting in. Lunardi currently has them as one of the last 4 in, but a loss tomorrow could have them on the outside looking in, just depending on what other bubble teams do and of course how the selection committee feels like putting in at the last second.
UK on the other hand is fighting for a higher seed. With a loss today, they could have dropped to a 5 seed. With the win today, we seem to be solid in the 4 spot. There is a chance UK squeaks in as a 3 if we win the SEC title. The problem is, with the championship game not being until Sunday, typically the selection committee has already penciled in the teams who are not in the bubble and if for example Miss. St made it to the finals, they would have a backup plan if they have to plug someone in who wouldn’t make it without the automatic qualifier.
Which means the selection committee may end up having UK selected in a spot not factoring in the championship game, if we get that far. If we do end up winning the tourney and don’t get the 3, this would be my guess as why.
The biggest news from today’s game actually occurred after the game, as an altercation mainly between Liggins and Ole Miss Buckner. The exact facts seem to depend on who you ask. Close to the end of the game Buckner apparently had the ball in his hands on a dead ball that would be UK’s ball. Instead of allowing Buckner to give the ball to the ref, Liggins swiped it from him. Buckner started trash talking Liggins for doing this and Liggins responded something the likes of “you can stop talking because your going home.”
At the end of the game, they had Ole Miss and UK going back through the same tunnel into the locker room. Ole Miss went first but Buckner walked very slow allowing the UK players to catch up with him. Buckner then went after Liggins in which Liggins backed off from him. At this point security and players for both sides stepped in to prevent any physical fighting to occur.
Buckner had no comment about the situation. Liggins after the game, admitted he may have been able to prevent the situation by telling him he was going home when the game was in hand. He mentioned how you have to be smarter than getting in a fight, or you will make it on Sportscenter in a negative way.
As for the game, Jones and Knight did not play well but Knight was clutch down the stretch in scoring and getting big rebounds. Despite the two freshman stars from struggling.
Jones tweaked his ankle and seemed to struggle throughout and was plagued with foul trouble. He ended with only 7 points.
Lamb picked up the slack by scoring 19. Going 7-10 from the field, 3-4 from three, 4 rebounds, 3 assist, 1 steal and only 1 turnover. Lamb is not a typical rebounder, so that stat is bigger for him than it may look…
Miller played well when he was able to play, he went to the bench early in the 1st half with 2 fouls. He ended with 15 points, 6-11 from the field, 7 rebounds, 2 assist.
Harrellson played well in the 1st half, seemed to fade in the 2nd. He ended with 13 points and 7 rebounds.
Liggins had only 4 points off the bench but did a good job keeping Chris Warren in check the 1st half.
Warren in the 2nd half was another story. After UK took a double digit lead, Warren looked unstoppable. He continued to fly to the basket, get fouled and nail free throws. They made a comeback but UK would not allow them to ever lead.
Then Warren stopped racing down the court and to the basket. You would have to guess Warren did not have the energy to make this work anymore. Otherwise it would be crazy for Warren to not continue to attack, as UK had no answer for it.
Warren hit some clutch 3’s down the stretch as well but overall he did not shoot well from three. He ended up shooting 4-15 from behind the arc. To put that in perspective, UK as a team shot 4-16. That’s a lot of jacked threes by one man…
Ole Miss ended up shooting 30 threes for the night, going 8-30 (26.7%).
UK won the rebound battle 40-32 but this seems to be a misleading stat. Most of UK’s rebounds came off of missed threes by Ole Miss where Ole Miss chose not to crash the boards. Whenever it was a battle for the board, Ole Miss seemed to have a significant advantage.
Turnovers were 10 for each team. UK had 4 blocks to their 2.
Now its time to focus on a team that owned UK on the road, Alabama. Cal said after the Ole Miss game tonight, during the Bama game there was a point in which Cal just hoped to not lose by 40…Bama is big and plays very aggressive. UK is small, more finesse than aggressive. UK will have to bring it tomorrow, to leave with a W.
Go Cats! Roll Tide right out of Catlanta!
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