Kentucky at Arkansas: Second Half Game Thread

Kentucky absolutely failed to take care of the basketball in the first half, and as a result, they are behind at the half. Remarkably, despite a game that only had a nodding relationship to college basketball, Kentucky is behind by only a basket. The biggest reason is because Kentucky has defended very well, and their size has given the Arkansas Razorbacks no end of trouble.

Personally, I'm just glad both teams got that out of their system. It was a very ugly game,and both teams had a hand in making it one of the most unpleasant halves of college basketball this season for any two teams in America. Arkansas had more to do with it, though, because Kentucky is just too big for them in a normal game.

Here are the stats:

Halftime box score from #UKvsARK: pic.twitter.com/X0juOBxlF9

— Kentucky Athletics (@UKAthleticsNews) January 15, 2014

What will Calipari do in the second half? I hope he'll have the Wildcats run some offense instead of constantly attacking the Arkansas press. The problem has been that Kentucky hasn't done a particularly good job of attacking the press, and has turned the ball over a lot trying to do so.

But what's really killing Kentucky right now is free throw shooting, and it seems to be getting worse instead of better. To be fair, the guys shooting them — Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee — are both pretty poor free throw shooters. But James Young has no excuse, even though he's been largely responsible for keeping the Wildcats in the game.

Buckle up, Wildcats fans. Here comes twenty big minutes of ... something. None dare call it basketball if it is like the first half.