Cats improve to 10-1 as they take down Samford 82-50 in front of an attendance of 21,984. UK was up by 23 at the half and was looking to be able to easily cover the 35 point spread but only won the 2nd half by 9, totaling a 32 point take down.
Hard to complain when you demolish a team without your 1st team All-American in Jones. The one area of weakness is the continued open players with layups off of the pick. This was a broken record with the announcers tonight.
Lamb was on tonight as he led all scorers with 26 points. He shot 4-6 from 3, 8-12 from the field, 6-7 at the line.
Other scorers: Miller-17 (nice showing by Miller), Teague-14, Kidd-Gilchrist-10, Davis-8 (given the defender of the game award for his 9 rebounds and 5 blocks), Wiltjer-5 (including 1 hook shot), and Vargas with 2.
Cats outscored Samford 42-32 in the paint. UK has outscored every opponent this season in the paint.
We dominated from the three as well, the one area Samford was suppose to be good at. My how things change when you have a tough defense on you. Cats shot 9-21 (42.9%) from three to Samford’s 3-16 (18.8%).
Cats won the rebound battle 37-19. What I found alarming is the offensive rebound margin, as we out rebounded them on the offensive side 15-3. That is 5 additional possessions every time Samford added 1.
Samford failed to block us one time as we won the block battle 7-0.
It was a fairly smooth played game as the Cats turned it over 7 times to their 14.
Anthony Davis after the game:
It’s going great, going hard out in practice. Getting ready for conference play.
(On school) We are constantly being pushed to stay in the books. I only had two finals. Finals started Monday and I was done on Monday, so I had the rest of the week off.
They were doing a lot of backdoor cuts and I was doing a lot to help, and Cal said to go after the ball every time they went to the whole so I did that.
Coach Cal said to stay low and get every rebound and that is what I’m trying to do.
I being 6’10, and other guys may not be as tall as me, so I’m trying to take advantage of that instead of making it harder by shooting pull ups.
The breakfast club is a group of guys getting together before practice. We sent out a mass message to all the guys to come out with us.
Tomorrow we will probably just put up shots with another game on Thursday.
Calipari after the game:
On a sad note, last night Jim Rose passed away. You are talking about a legend in our state and our city. Basically built Lexington Christian High School. I was just with his wife and him on Tuesday. My prayers and thoughts go out to them.
You saw what happens to freshman when the ball is moved five times. They stopped and they went back door. They ran their stuff better than anyone we have played against. They shot a better 2 point percentage than anybody else has. Nobody does that against us.
If we play a team like this in the tourney, last year it was Princeton; it will help us prepare for this.
I liked how Teague ran the court, ran the game. There were 3 or 4 passes he should have made, the rest of the game he did well.
He is shooting 2 or 3 jumpers to keep the defense honest. If the defender is on him, he isn’t taking that shot. He can shoot, but that isn’t the strength of his game.
Miller was out making shots. He was out 2 hours earlier getting ready.
Who else played well today? Lamb. He is putting forth out additional practice and it is making him better.
In basketball and in life you get what you deserve. It is what it is. Fate does intervene in your life and through hard work you will find success in something else if one option in life isn’t there anymore.
Think about this core group of breakfast club if they keep doing this. This is what Jordan and his guys did and won 72 games that year. I’m doing it, come on out if you want. This is the kind of thing that carries over to their life. If you want to be your best you have to put forth the hard work.
Jones wants to play on Thursday but we will see on that. I'm not worried about if he can make out for this one or not. He cares enough that he wants me to know that he wanted to go back in when he got hurt.
The one side of the Kentucky effect is lottery picks and being loved. The other side of the Kentucky effect is getting down on players when they have a bad game and make it out to more than it is. Jones at IU, just had a bad game, nothing more.
When it comes to Facebook, our website and Twitter I don't read it. I know when something that has caused a stir occurs from my guys who run it, like when I mentioned about the scheduling but I don't personally read all the comments.
Cats now take on Loyola (MD) on Thursday. Don’t miss this one. It is that one game a year that is played early mid week. Cats tip off at 1 eastern. With the players out for Christmas break, a game like this can happen.
Not certain of the purpose of the early mid week time, I know many UK fans dislike it with that pesky work thing getting in the way. Loyola comes in with an impressive 8-2 record but they have only played one major school and that was a loss to Wake Forest.
Go Cats!
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