Thanks to UNC going down to UNLV, Cats take over the #1 spot in both polls. North Carolina falls to #5. I only caught the first half of the UNLV game before heading to bed but from what I saw is they are a team you don't want to face. Not that they are going to be a top 5 team by any means but because they are a wildcard. They seem to come down and just jack up shot after shot. It is the mindset of you will have to out shoot us to win. If they have a hot shooting night any team no matter how big you are or how many stars you received coming out of high school, nor your ability to 360 dunk it will be able to do anything about it. You will have to be unconscious from three as well to stick with them. This is a type of team that could lose in the first round of the tourney or knock off a top seed.
So how does this impact the UK/UNC matchup? It does take away some of the hype of #1 vs #2 but this still the best two teams in the country facing off. If you took a poll from analyst of who will win the title I'm sure you will still see UNC and UK at the top of most non bias list.
It is also North Carolina, so UK is going to be out ready to play.
North Carolina is at a disadvantage though. Not only do they have to play in Rupp but it is tough for them to even be focusing on UK. They have to face off with #7/#9 Wisconsin on Wednesday. Where as UK only has a bad St. Johns team to focus on. St. Johns is 4-3 with no respectable wins and coming off a lost against Northeastern by 14. That is a Colonial mid major. This was Northeastern most dominate win with a schedule of mid majors...
The key to the UNC game will come down to shooting and Davis and Jones staying out of foul trouble. We need to be hitting threes where we have an advantage on them. They will likely be feeding their bigs over and over. If Jones or Davis is out whoever Vargas or Wiltjer or a smaller player playing the post has to defend, this is who UNC will and should feed it to over and over. We will have a tough time handling this.
I would be lying if this factor doesn't make me nervous. In a game where the nerves are high, three point shooting tends to struggle. How many UK/UofL games have we watched that were very scrappy but lacked fluid offense. If both teams are tense, a team designed to score in the paint has the edge over a team shooting outside shots. So we have to find a way to be knocking down our shots.
It will also be interesting to see if we have the ability to lob it up to Davis. We in the past can just throw it up for an alley oop by Davis. Can we do this against their bigs?
One thing I also expect UK to do is to use our athletic bigs to our advantage. Jones and Davis have to got to take it from the outside and drive their man to the basket. UNC's bigs will not likely be able to handle this and will have to have help. Our guys then must dish it off down low to the guy freed up from the UNC help for any shot. This could provide an opportunity for some alley oops. We must avoid waiting to long to dish it off for the charge or make certain they are inside the new arc to create an automatic blocking call.
So it will be interesting. I'm the worst at predicting scores but I expect it to stay close. Any team blowing out the other would be a surprise. I expect UK to pull it out but a loss to a more experience very talented team would not be shocking.
UNC going down does take a little pressure off. If UNC was still undefeated and beat UK, UK would likely be behind UNC in the polls all year long. Now even if we lose, it would just take UK to win one more game then them and we will over take them again. So there's that. Of course we just want to win Saturday and leave UNC in the dust...
Still no official word on the NBA rule. I've heard it all from leaving it the way it is until further notice, the 2 year rule that seemed to be the big favorite until recently or the baseball rule of you can go pro but if you go to college you have to stay three years.
I personally believe the 2 year rule of those three options is best for UK but apparently they don't make ruling just on what would make us UK fans happy...not sure why. So I guess we will find out sometime before Christmas. No real feeling for what will happen, I'm holding out hope that we get a round 2 of Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist and Teague but no strong insight that it will be one or the other. Those with a strong opinion on what will happen is likely just drinking one guys kool aid or wishful thinking...
Go Cats! Beat St. Johns!
No comments:
Post a Comment