Florida Fights, but Kentucky Overcomes to Win, 12 January 2010

Kentucky (16-0) came into Florida (11-4) after a sluggish win at home in their last basketball game against the Georgia Bulldogs.  Florida started the season with eight straight wins, but have lost four of their last 7 games.  Although the Florida Gators have been in a slump, it is still difficult to beat the Gators on their home-court.  The game started with the Florida Gators scoring the first seven points as the Wildcats couldn’t seem to get the ball in the basket.  Kentucky finally settled down and got back into the game, but still could not seem to hit a shot in close.  In the half, the game was back and forth between both teams until the Cats started pulling away slightly.  The highlight of the half was when Daniel Orton (UK) blocked three consecutive shots on the same Florida possession.  The Kentucky Wildcats led at half-time by a score of 38 to 31 behind Eric Bledsoe’s 15 points on 6 of 7 shooting.

The Wildcats continued to gradually pull away in the second half until they found themselves with a 15 point lead.  Just when the game seemed to be over, the Gators’ Walker hit what seemed like three 3-pointers in a row and the Wildcats saw their lead deminish and the game was eventually tied at 72-72.  That was as close as Florida would get though, because Kentucky went on a run in the last few minutes of the game to take the lead for good and finished the game strong.  The final score of the game was 89-77 in favor of the Kentucky Wildcats.

Top Performers for Kentucky were:
Eric Bledsoe - 25 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals (3 turnovers)
John Wall - 19 points, 6 assists, 4 rebounds, 1 block
Patrick Patterson - 15 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block
DeMarcus Cousins - 13 points, 5 rebounds
Darius Miller - 9 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists
Darnell Dodson - 6 points, 1 rebound
Daniel Orton - 2 points, 9 rebounds, 4 blocks

This was a tough road game for the Kentucky Wildcats, but the Cats were able to rise above and get the win.  The Wildcats shot 51% from the field and 39% from behind the 3-point line, helping them secure the win.  Both, the Wildcats and the Gators, finished the game with only 10 turnovers.  The Wildcats were tested in a hostile environment with a rowdy crowd, but was able to overcome.  Kentucky’s next game is on the road as well, when they go into Auburn on 16 January, 2010 at 4:00 p.m. (EST).

Kentucky at Florida, An NCAA Tournament Play-in Game??

Most analysts had this basketball game as a play-in, play-out game for the NCAA Tournament.  Either way, both teams needed the win to keep their chances alive for the tourney.

Kentucky and Florida both came out flat in the first half.  If it wasn’t for Patrick Patterson, the Kentucky Wildcats would not have even been in the game at half-time.  Patrick Patterson finished the half with 14 points and 9 rebounds (7 of them were offensive rebounds).  Jodie Meeks only had 6 points on 3 of 10 shooting.  The score at the half was 29-22 in favor of the Florida Gators.

The second half was just a plain ole joke.  The Kentucky Wildcats really didn’t seem to care if they won or lost the game.  They racked up over 20+ turnovers total for the game.  Everyone for the Kentucky Wildcats was garbage for the second.  You could maybe make a case for Ramon Harris, but other than Harris, just garbage.

Yet again, no sense of urgency, not playing like the game is meaningful…just hurtful to be a UK fan right now with the way the basketball game was played.  I am not a fair weather UK basketball fan, but come on, how much more ridiculous could the University of Kentucky Wildcats be??  The only hope that they have to make the NCAA Tournament is to win the Southeastern Conference Tournament, yeah, good luck with that!  They can’t even seem to win one game, much less, 3 or 4 in a row!!

If anyone is wondering:
Patterson finished with 16 points and 13 rebounds
Meeks finished with 15 points and 5 rebounds
Ramon Harris had 14 points
Perry Stevenson had 4 points and Galloway/Stewart both finished with 2 points

That was it!  That was the only Wildcats scoring for the whole basketball game!  The final score of the game was 60-53 in favor of the Florida Gators.

Kentucky Gives It’s All Against Florida, Wins In Dramatic Fashion By 3 Points

Oh what a day!  Ladies and Gentlemen, if you missed this basketball game, then you really missed the heart of the Kentucky Wildcats.

After a back and forth game with Jodie Meeks struggling in field goals and FREE THROWS as well, but Jodie would make up for it late in the game.

The game was tied at halftime with a score of 30 apiece.  This was due to a lot of turnovers by both teams with a sloppy first half.  The second half lead was only spread out by either team at six points.  I believe Florida’s biggest lead was 6 and Kentucky was 4 points (someone please correct me if I’m wrong).

Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson and Jodie Meeks were both struggling almost the whole game even though Meeks was able to get his, here and there.  Other players managed to step up this game and play their hearts out.  We had Michael Porter finally putting up 3’s when He was open.  He went 3 of 3 from 3-pointers for the game, but did miss 2 free throws. 

The most amazing performance for me, was from Kevin Galloway as he finished with 6 points, 9 assists, and 8 rebounds.  A few of His assists were very impressive no-look passes.  Then, there was Perry Stevenson!  He seems as though He is becoming that third scorer that Kentucky is looking for.  Perry finished with 10 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks.  Josh Harrellson also contributed 11 points for the Cats.

It is important to note that Patrick Patterson went down in the second half as He stepped on someone’s leg and injured his ankle.  He was later walking around and the injury didn’t seem to be too serious, so we should see him back for the next game (hopefully).  He managed to finish with 7 points and 8 rebounds.

Now for the ironic part…there is less than 10 seconds left, the game is tied, and the ball is inbounded to Jodie Meeks.  He dribbles down the court and He has to put the ball up behind the 3-point line with 5 seconds left in the game because the shot clock is about to expire.  After double-pumping because of Nick Calathes’ defense, He finally gets the shot off.  And, well, naturally it went in…that wasn’t the ironic part.

The ironic part is that now, the Florida Gators had the ball with about 5 seconds left and Nick Calathes naturally has the ball because He has been killing us the whole game (finished with 33 points).  With the clock about to expire, Nick Calathes puts up a prayer 3-pointer from about 25-26 feet deep and of course it doesn’t go in, BUT, the referees called a foul on a Kentucky Player for touching Calathes’ arm after the ball had been released.  Calathes was 11 for 12 from the free throw line at this point and is one of the greatest in the SEC Conference.  He has 3 coming up and Florida needs 3 to tie.  First one goes up, in and out…second one goes up, clanks off the back of the rim.  Well, as assumed, He threw the ball at the backboard on the third free throw in an attempt to make it bounce far enough to attempt to give someone a three point look because only 0.6 seconds remained in the game.  Well, he managed to get the ball to the backboard, it bounced back to a Florida teammate, He put it up, and swished the 3!!  Fortunately for us, the ball didn’t hit the rim on the free-throw attempt and time would have expired anyway before the Florida player got the three point shot off.  So, Nick Calathes ends up missing 3 key free throws that could have tied the game.

And that is how the game ended!  Another important note of the game is that Walter Hodge was ejected early in the second half for stepping on Perry Stevenson’s arm while He was lying on the court.  Intentionally or not, He was ejected from the game because He was given a dead-ball flagrant foul, which is an automatic ejection.

To sum it all up, GREAT JOB from non-scoring Kentucky players for stepping up and scoring in this basketball game.  Hopefully, this will carry over into more games!

The final score was 68-65 in favor of the Kentucky Wildcats.

Kentucky Against Florida, Tuesday, 10-Feb-2009

The Kentucky Wildcats’ next game is against the Florida Gators at Rupp Arena on Tuesday, 10 Feb 2009 at 9:00 pm.

The Cats are currently on a 3-Game losing skid and out of first place in the SEC. Kentucky has not played a game in about a week. Hopefully, they have been using that time to fix the flaws that has been shown in the last couple of games. The problem is that it hasn’t been the same flaw for every game. One game was rebounding, another game was turnovers, and the Wildcats have obviously not been shooting the ball well either.

The Florida Gators come in with an overall record of 19-4 and 6-2 in the Southeastern Conference. They currently hold first place in the East with Kentucky only a full game back at 5-3.

The Gators’ star Guard is Nick Calathes averaging 18.1 points per game, 6.4 assists per game, and 1.9 steals per game. While UK has home-court advantage, it really hasn’t proven all that important lately as they have lost the last 2 games in Rupp. This will not be an easy game to say the least. Hopefully Kentucky will come out and surprise us, because the way they have been playing and Florida’s recent track record…the Cats have to be looked at as the underdogs or undercats of this game!

This game will be televised on the ESPN network.