Kentucky Wildcats 80, Georgia Bulldogs 68:  Postmortem

Don’t forget to vote for J. Wall on the Bob Cousy Award ballot.

fans storm floor

ESPN has been all over their (insert gross male part here) and I really don’t know why. They aren’t THAT good. Worse conf this season IMO, and they can’t dominate it.

It would have been the perfect night…

I concur with Tru’s points about the team, bench and all. Another double-double and game ball for PPat…..YAY !!
Go Big Blue !!!

played perhaps his best game of the year. He defended, he rebounded, and he scored.

he had 4 points (on 2-9 shooting), 2 rebounds and 2 blocks. That is not really his best game this year. I will give you that he hustled, defended well and kept trying to contribute in anyway he could but he has certainly played better than tonight.

and his best John Wall impersonation to start the second half? First, it was the steal and coast to coast score, then the steal and leading the break with the pretty dish to Patterson. Great stuff! What a half of basketball. As Tru said, that defense was truely suffocating. If our guys play defense like that every game, all others can, as James Caan once said, “Fuggeddabout it!”.

played huge tonight. He had disappeared for the last 2 weeks, but shot great tonight. We will need him to stay hot to go deep in the tourney.

from the game… I live reasonably close to Athens. I sat 9 rows back from KY bench… Cal was all over Miller tonight. Still, the kid was unflappable, and did not let misses and Cal’s relentless chewing get him down. Cuz got a bad call on foul #2 in first half that benched him till 2nd half. FINALLY, a glimmer of promise in the treys- shot about 33% I think. The pre-game shoot around was very telling… everyone was shooting 3’s over and over- I think it was a “point of emPHAsis” as they say.

On a personal note: my 12-yr old son got to see the Cats live for the first time ever- what a treat. I watched him watch the game more than the game itself…he was in Cat nirvana! He kept saying “I can’t believe these are the KY Wildcats I see on TV all the time! Look Dad- they are right there!” And, not to get too mushy, but he had my Daddy’s UK hat on- I lost Dad last Fall, so I kinda feel like he was there with Jack and me anyway… I know he was happy with the result! I am a vascular surgeon and I was in a big mess this afternoon that I thought was not going to be resolved in time for the game- I had a colleague that owes me on the speaker phone in O.R. just in case I had to hand it over and fly out of there to see tip-off…I was NOT going to miss this! (Things were resolved in time by me, BTW- patient will be fine…).

GA guys behind me at the game kept trying to get under our skin with Coach Cal typical comments- but when we went up 14 with just over 1:30 to play they were gone. In fact, UGA fans started clearing out big time at about 5:00 left- unbelieveable! They did the same as we kicked their butts in football this Fall too! Crowd I would estimate was 1/3 blue- amazing. Anyway- GO CATS! #1 seed, here we come!

high school ball was on till 8 so i waited….4 ot later i was still waiting and at half i heard the score. i was at work so all i had was the radio and was looking forward to the second half when i turned on the radio and heard another high school game…now they do play the game over the PA (which the UT fans hate) but i cant hear it clear enough for my taste. so very angry.

As long as we are in transition, or in a position to flash his athletic up-tempo style, we seem to win. In a half-court slugfest (which is what the NCAA tournament devolves to); we have trouble.

with #‘s 4 and 5 going down last night.
At this point AP 1, 2, and 3 each have two losses. 4-Duke, 5-KSU , and 6-OSU have 5 or more losses. Yeah I know that’s not the only criteria, but it’s a good one:). How’s this… UK’s been AP #4 or higher since December.

The threes fell to quiet those critics, the defense played like they owned the Dawgs to get the defensive critics to hush, and Cal really liked what he saw out of the guys tonight so he hushed…..hmmmmmmm…..guess there isnt a lot to say after all……nahhhhh

I will say it now, and this will probably bring the naysayers out of the woodwork, but DeMarcus Cousins is the most versatile, talented, and gifted big man ever to put on the blue and white. Call him a head case if you like, tell me he doesnt know what to do when the pressure is on, but I dont care. I think that Sir Barkley is right, he would really benefit from another year of college, but there is no way he goes lower than #3 in the draft right now, so it’s a really hard call.

I am now of the opinion that Cal is truly the master manipulator and motivator in college basketball, because I think he wanted that loss at UT, the same as SC, as it refocused these guys for this last run. I have always believed there are no good losses, but I now stand corrected. Other than Bledsoe overplaying his position on a few occasions, the Cats played almost mistake free basketball against a team that normally causes mistakes to be made.

All this team needs is some little something, I am not sure what, maybe a website posting about how they cant get it done, or someone like Bobby Knight telling the world they dont have what it takes, and they will destroy everyone in their path to the NC. I believe they will get there either way, but I think that Cal may need just a little bit of locker room material to get them over the last hump. I wouldnt want to be Florida come Sunday.

Has anyone asked John Wall what kind of a building on campus he woulf like to donate and have named after himself? Cause he is going to have plenty of money really soon. By the way John, Cuz, Patrick, If you need insurance….call me……..just sayin’…… ;-)

After getting fouled, late in the game, Wall came up limping. Anybody hear if he was injured in any way?

I thought he played a poor game. Liggins got beat pretty bad by Leslie a couple of times. I agree on Miller, one of his best games all year. And Cuz’s points and boards may have been down, but he had 6 blocks.

Why is it still said that Kentucky has clinched a “share” of the SEC title? Since the Cats swept the Commodores, how can Vanderbilt then be rewarded with a share of the title even IF the two were to finish the regular season with the same record? I would understand it if they had split their head to head meetings and then finished with the same record. But, it would seem to me that this does make the Cats the outright SEC regular season champion no matter what happens this weekend.

PPat should get some credit for stepping up his defensive game. Trey ate him up in Lexington, but not tonight. Granted, foul trouble, and not all of them were fouls on PPat, helped. But Trey was ineffective when he was in the game. After he stepped out on PPat and hit a 3 over him, PPat shut him down. That was key.

The 3 headed best did a great job on Leslie also. Miller was in his grill the whole night when he did try to shoot the mid-range jumpers. I think all of Leslie’s makes were within 3 feet of the goal.

10 minutes of the game or so not being shown on an ESPN satellite. Not sure how ESPN got involved but later on SportsCenter there was another reason to hate ESPN.

They went through most of their on air talent (except Dicky V for some reason) and EVERY SINGLE ONE PICKED KANSAS OR SYRACUSE to win the championship.

The team that I saw play last night might have a word or two to say about that!!

We need to go to sylvars web post and vote for John Wall. Less than 1% behind a “DOOKIE” for cousy award.

At this time 6:55 PM EST, the fans votes, which equal overall one vote, for the player award, stands at:

Answer: Greivis Vasquez – Maryland Total Votes: 27.8%
Answer: John Wall – Kentucky Total Votes: 27.2%

Fan voting concludes tomorrow 3/5. Get on the site and vote. It is the slowest site I’ve ever been on. Though I have to admitt all I have is a narrow band connection.