Nolan Richardson, eat your heart out. You can coach relentless defense without being a pain in the neck to get along with. Meet Matthew Mitchell. His ladies just picked off UCSB and swept a West Coast road trip that saw UK give up no more than 10 easy baskets in 2 games. After giving up a robust 62 points Tuesday against Pepperdine, A'Dia Mathies and Co. got downright stingy against the Lady Gauchos and only allowed them 38 points all night. The UK Women were firing on all cylinders defensively as witnessed by ASOB member ukfastcat.

Just back from the UK Hoops vs. UCSB Gauchos here in Santa Barbara. The offense was inconsistent at best, but the 40 Minutes of Dread are so stifling UCSB had a very tough time advancing the ball past the foul line. They might have gotten a couple of easy buckets per half. They had to work extremely hard for everything else. The Lady Kats forced 28 turnovers and so many clock violations in that total that I lost count. The Lady Gauchos hustled from tip to the last tick, they just didn’t have the athletes to compete for a full game. This is an extremely quick team on D, active as I’ve ever seen, very disciplined and supremely coached. A pleasure to watch.

I couldn't have said it any better myself- So I won't try.

Kentucky extended its winning streak to nine games, and went 2-0 on their Pacific Coast road trip that began with an 80-62 win over Pepperdine in Malibu on Tuesday. Mathies continued her resurgence into the offensive side of things by putting up 19 points including 4 3-pt baskets and added a couple of boards. Stallworth and Walker both put up 12 pts. each, with Samarie scoring a double-double, and DeNesha just missing one. Once again, 10 Wildcats scored for UK. 8 players played double digit minutes, and it showed in the low scoring total for UCSB.

Kentucky shot 45% from the floor, 31.8% from the 3 pt line, and only 60% FT. But what prevented UK from getting a bigger margin of victory was their continued early game struggles from the floor. But after going 2-10 early on, the Cats shot over 50% for the rest of the first half, en route to that 45% for the game. Kentucky's D only allowed 18 pts in the second half, which is amazing considering that they only gave up 20 in the first.

Kentucky comes home to prepare for what should be a pleasant Christmas Eve and Day, then they face Alcorn State a week from today. 11 of the Hoops Squad's next 18 games are televised, and all will be televised in the postseason.