#1 Cats win in a tough fashion, 69-63 over Vanderbilt. UK improves to 25-1, 11-0 in the SEC. John Calipari is now 2-1 @Vanderbilt as UK’s coach. 6 straight road wins for the 1st time since 2003. Gary Parrish and Digger Phelps, eat your heart out!
Thanks to Florida being swept by Tennessee, Kentucky now holds a 3.5 game lead over Florida (7-3). Thanks to Miss. St. also losing, Vandy is tied for 3rd place with a 6-4 record. The tie breaker for SEC tournament would go to MSU thanks to their overtime win over Vandy earlier this season.
Three top 10 teams fell today: #3 Ohio St., #6 Baylor and #7 Florida.
Did you know Vanderbilt had won 4 straight games against #1 teams??? I didn’t know if you caught that…thankfully that stat was burned as UK is the 1st number one to win there since the 80’s. Not even the dominate Florida team of Noah, Horford, etc could win at Vandy as a #1.
In a game that really went the opposite that most expect. I kept reading UK/Vandy will be a close game in the 1st half and then UK would handle them in the 2nd. Really it went the other way as UK handled them in the 1st half and led by 13 and somehow found a way to stand the storm of 3’s in the 2nd half.
Vandy took a 4 point lead 55-51 with 8:42 to go. This was in thanks to the raining of threes and Vandy’s zone made Kentucky’s offense stagnant. . UK went on an 8-0 run with a put back by Davis, alleyoop and an and 1 play by Davis and a three by Lamb, to go up 59-55 and never lost the lead again.
UK went back to playing very tight d from 3 and Vandy could not get an open shot down the stretch.
The play of the game in my opinion was Teague falling down and somehow still found a way to dish it off to Miller for the layup as the shot clock buzzed. For all the Vandy fans that had to be quite deflating.
Balanced scoring between Lamb, Davis, Teague and Jones tonight. Lamb led all scorers with 16, Davis-15 (8 rebounds, 7 blocks), Jones-14 (9 rebounds, 4 blocks), Teague-13 (8 assists), Miller-5, Kidd-Gilchrist-4, and Wiltjer with 2.
UK was not able to shut down Vandy from 3 like they did Florida. Vandy went 8-21 (38.1%) from behind the arc. UK on the other hand went 3-14 (21.4%). That is a difference of 15 points. Vandy came in shooting 42.1% from behind the arc, so UK did put Vandy below their average behind the arc. Of course it seems worse than what it really was, thanks to most of them coming in the 2nd half.
Vandy is not a big team and yet battled well with rebounds as UK only won this margin 32-31. They out rebounded Kentucky on the offensive side 12-9.
Free throw shooting wasn’t a clinic for any team. UK went 10-15 (66.7%), Vandy 9-14 (64.3%).
Of course UK won the block battle 12-4. I would have liked to have seen many of those blocks be able to stay in play to give us the chance at coming up with the ball. A block directly out of bounds becomes more like a deflection. It denies the shot but doesn’t allow your team a chance at coming up with the ball. I’ve been on that soap box since Orton would intentionally block it to the 2nd row for showmanship instead of keeping it in play.
Terrence Jones after the game:
(On his poor start) To much birthday cake and ice cream, Mrs. Cal’s brownies. (In reference to it being Coach Cal’s birthday this week)
We just knew we had to come together and stop the open threes. When we took the lead back, we concentrated on that and made sure they didn’t get any threes off.
(On figuring out the zone) We just moved the ball and made shots.
We just tried to force them to drive and come at the bigs down low.
We are feeding off Teague’s play. Making us run plays when we need to, pulling it out when it isn’t there.
(on crazy shot in the 1st half) I was just trying to draw a foul, I thought they were going to call it and they didn’t and the shot went in.
Coach Cal after the game:
Down the stretch we defended well and got balls. In the end we didn’t play to not lose, we played to win. You got to play to win, you lose you lose but you can’t be tentative.
Teague did great. He is getting better and better. He is getting everyone involved and still scoring points when he needs to, he is getting better.
(On Vandy’s 2nd half offense turn around) They made threes. We wanted them shooting 2’s and they were coming around ball screens and gave them shots and they hit them. What we were down 4?
Jones was really good, physically around the goal. When he makes his mind up that he will be the best player in the country he is. We were up 13 because of how Terrence Jones played.
I had to get on Lamb to shoot the ball. He missed a couple and then didn’t want to shoot it. Then he can’t be in the game then. His job is to get down and shoot it.
(On Indiana) We are a different team now, we are a much more physical team then we were then.
(On having a week off) I’m thinking of doing a Wednesday stream where students can come over and watch a scrimmage and fans can watch us online.
UK now goes home to play Ole Miss on Saturday, who is 5-5 in conference play. The Rebels key wins this season are: Miami (Fl), Arkansas, Miss. St., and Georgia.
Go Cats! Beat the Rebels!
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