Kentucky displays killer instinct in route of LSU

There are numerous amateur and professional writers online that cover Kentucky basketball in one form or another.  This is a well known fact.  When the Cats win big like they did today at LSU–a 74-50 pummel of the Tigers–the feel good articles will surely be written.  Some writers will focus on Terrence Jones’ outstanding resurgence, a 27 point and 9 rebound effort.  Many will note LSU point guard Anthony Hickey and his struggles throughout (because he is a former Kentucky Mr. Basketball).  And many more will note the ridiculous and dangerous flagrant foul LSU forward Malcolm White committed on Kentucky star Anthony Davis.

All of these storylines are relevant and capture the imagination of the game, but to me they are not the top stories.

What I will remember most, undoubtedly, are the back-to-back 3 pointers by UK’s Marquis Teague and Darius Miller late in the first half.

Kentucky started fast with two 3 pointers to take a 6-0 lead.  They built the lead to 22-10 with 8:26 remaining in the first half.  From there LSU started chipping into the lead.  The chipped and chipped so well they eventually cut the UK lead to just 25-24 with 3:19 remaining.  The LSU crowd was at fever pitch.  The Tigers energy level was through the roof.  At this point, the way this UK team has played in first halves, I worried.  Not that they would lose the game.  But I worried that they would lose the lead.  I worried that they would miss a few shots in a row and would go into the half tied, something like that.  In other words I didn’t expect a killer instinct.

But I saw just that in those two shots.  I saw Teague drill that first one to silence the crowd, giving the Cats a 28-24 cushion.

After another LSU bucket–and another resurgent act of bedlam from the LSU faithful–I saw senior Darius Miller calmly rise from the wing and bury another 3 pointer for a 31-26 lead.

I texted one of my favorite texts of the year to a family member: Killer Instinct.

They’ve shown the “will to win” time and time again in the waning moments of tight games all year but until the back-t0-back 3 pointers by Teague and Miller I had yet to be overwhelmed with the feeling of a killer instinct developing in this team.

The cats would eventually tack on four more points before the half to take a 35-26 halftime lead.  The dagger 3 pointers spurred a nearly double digit lead at the half, and effectively ended and silenced the Tigers attempt to take the lead and build fervor in the stands.

It wasn’t just the fact that they hit back-to-back 3’s.  It was the way in which they hit them.  It wasn’t at the end of the shotclock after nervous offense.  Miller, in particular, rose confidently and just bullied the ball thru the hoop.  I loved his reaction.  I saw in this moment a team building a tougher mentality.

This team will have a lot to prove in the coming weeks as they continue to defend their #1 ranking and they start to finally play the better teams in the league (Florida, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State).  Until today, I was sure they would have a couple of losses.  Now, I don’t know.  They may very well still end up with two or three losses in league play but the Cats took a major step forward today.  They went on the road, took on a packed house, and punched the Tigers squarely in the face when LSU put forth their absolute best effort.

Most importantly, they didn’t wait till the end of the game to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

Who are Kentucky’s best two players?

Last week my good friend A-Train asked me what has to be the most impossible question to answer: Who are Kentucky’s two best players?

We’re talking Anthony Davis.  We’re talking Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.  We’re talking Doron Lamb.

Who are Kentucky’s best two players?

Why these kinds of tortuous questions are even dreamed up I’ll never know, but being the game-nerd I so love to be, I started thinking.  I took the bait not because I wanted to nitpick one of those three players games to the point it would seem I was “bashing” the one left out.  Not a chance.  Homie don’t play that.  Destructive criticism is not my game.  Instead, I looked at the question as an opportunity to think who this team could possibly live without if they had to try and win the NCAA Tournament this year without one of them.  Who could they best forge on without and still make a deep tourney run??  That would lead me to the one they could most live without.  Maybe.

On any given night this year Lamb, Davis or Gilchrist has played a starring role.  The accolades seem to rotate.  There’s the back-to-back 24 and 26 point outbursts by Lamb against Chattanooga and Samford, respectively.  “Big game” Kidd-Gilchrist has vaulted into NPOY discussions for inspired play against North Carolina, Indiana and Louisville–the latter of which Kidd-Gilchrist had about 75 rebounds.  And Davis is only leading the nation in blocked shots per game.  Ho hum.

I’m writing this blog post because I’ve passed this question on to my Kentucky-loving family.  I tested the waters.  Including myself and A-Train I have input from five people.

The answers are not the same.

The aunt said the two best players are Kidd-Gilchrist and Lamb.  So did the mom.  So did A-Train.

The stepfather said Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist.

Me?  I took Davis and Lamb.

How ridiculous does it look that I just left Kidd-Gilchrist off a best player on your team list??!

I cannot fully speak for the logic behind the other choices–they never went into great detail–but I can speak for myself.  First of all I love Doron Lamb.  He’s about 680 miles behind Mashburn on my all-time favorite UK player list, but that’s still 1,400 miles ahead of most everyone else.  I love Lamb’s game.  I love his confidence.  He is so difficult to guard because he has so many moves.  He’s shooting 46% from three (even though he’s in a mini-slump right now), 48% from the field and he’s a pretty decent option as a part-time point guard.  That’s an impressive resume.  I feel as though if you had to make a deep run in the tournament without a lethal scorer and shooter it would just be impossible to go far.  If Lamb is out for 40 minutes against North Carolina, who is Kentucky’s perimeter threat?  Wiltjer?  Beckham?  Miller can hit them but he doesn’t make an opposing team tremble.  See what I mean?  How do you replace that constant offensive presence from behind the arc??

I went with Davis because I have eyeballs.  Eyeballs and ears.  The eyeballs see ridiculous things.  The ears hear the sound of a basketball ricocheting off a cheerleader’s megaphone following a Davis rejection.  Blocks per game.  National leader.  He threatens to block every shot an opposing team takes.  In a frantic finish–the kind that often takes place in the NCAA Tournament–I want the nation’s rejection leader on the court.  Just like he was against North Carolina.

So in this exercise I basically found out a little more about myself.  I found that I don’t want to see my team without a true perimeter threat in the NCAA Tournament.  I found that if I can take a guy that opponents fear around the basket, I’ll take him too.

Apparently I’ll take those two over the high-motor, relentless jack-of-all-trades leader that Kidd-Gilchrist has proven to be.  I may not always choose this route though.  The concept that Darius Miller could come in and play the same position as Kidd-Gilchrist helps me make this decision.  He may not play it at the level of Kidd-Gilchrist, but on this year’s team, I’ll take those chances over the alternatives.

Plus, Kidd-Gilchrist would still make a hell of a leader on the sidelines.

All-Time Kentucky teams (with a twist)

Online yesterday I saw this thread on the Cats Illustrated message boards and, as usual, I thought participating in this would be a lot of fun.  Kudos to trueblue#1 for a neat idea.

The challenge is this: create an All-time best Kentucky Starting 5 while only being able to take one player from each of Kentucky’s previous five coaches.  Those coaches include John Calapari, Billy Gillispie, Tubby Smith, Rick Pitino, and Eddie Sutton.  Any player you choose simply had to play at least one season under that coach.  If a player played for two different coaches such as Patrick Patterson (Gillispie and Calipari), you could use him for either coach.

Finally, we had to set a concept for our picks.  Are we building this team based on the premonition that this starting 5 will compete against other great teams around the world?  Or are we building our starting 5 based largely on career achievements?  You may take a guy like Rajon Rondo with the former, but Wayne Turner for the latter.  That kind of thing.  To clear any confusion A-Train and I agreed to build two different teams based on both criterions.  First, we’ll post our all-time starting five that we would put up against anyone, and take some time to discuss our logic.  Lastly, we’ll briefly note our all-time starting 5 based on a great career coupled with the idea that these guys are all-time greats partly because of their heart and soul, and their pride in wearing the blue and white uniform.

Sawdog’s All-Time Kentucky Starting 5 (from the last five UK coaches):

PG   Rajon Rondo  (Smith)
SG   Jodie Meeks  (Gillispie)
SF   Jamal Mashburn  (Pitino)
PF   Kenny Walker  (Sutton)
C     Anthony Davis  (Calipari)

When you play a game like this you have to first ask yourself “who would I take from the short two year stint of Billy Gillispie?”  Well, it’s either Jodie Meeks or Patrick Patterson.  I hate leaving Pat off my list, but with Kenny Walker available from the Sutton years it becomes a little less painful.  I considered what it would be like to take Tony Delk as my SG and go with Patterson instead of Walker, but that would mean leaving off my favorite UK player of all time Jamal Mashburn (who, like Delk, played for Pitino).  I couldn’t dream of doing that.  Mashburn was a terrifying college player.  Mashburn shot 3’s with the skill and confidence of Delk or Meeks, but was 6’8 and 240 lbs.  You weren’t going to block him.  Ever.  But it was his presence on offense–the ability to pass and shoot equally well–that made him a first team All-American and my no brainer for Small Forward on my starting 5.  So once I knew Mashburn, Meeks and Walker were my core I looked for point guard and center.  And I had to choose those two positions from the Tubby Smith and John Calipari eras.  The center position was easy.  Anthony Davis.  You may argue he’s not developed enough, or he’s not a multi-skilled threat, but it doesn’t matter.  Basketball is as much defense as it is offense, and Davis is a freakish athletic talent with uncanny shot-blocking skills and patience.  He is literally a threat on every possession to block a weakside shot attempt.  He and Walker form a kind of skinny frontline, but Walker played with the aggression of a bigger man while Davis can give pounds away due to his ridiculous length.  That left point guard from the Tubby Smith era, and luckily this was one of the bright spot positions during his tenure.  I could go with Wayne Turner or Rajon Rondo.  I went with Rondo.  I had a deadeye shooter in Meeks in my backcourt, so I went with the guy who was super fast with the basketball and incredible on defense.  He doesn’t have to shoot well for us to win.  Not with Mashburn’s all around arsenal and the firepower of Meeks.  I like the look of this starting 5 a lot.

Sawdog’s All-Time Kentucky Starting 5 (great play coupled with embodying the UK uniform):

PG  Wayne Turner   (Smith)
SG  Rex Chapman   (Sutton)
SF  Jamal Mashburn   (Pitino)
PF  Patrick Patterson   (Gillispie)
C   Josh Harrellson   (Calipari)