Montana State Bobcats at Kentucky Wildcats: Live Game Thread

Welcome to yet another game in the Cawood Ledford Classic, this time versus the Montana State Bobcats from the Big Sky Conference. Kentucky will play three games in the next seven days — tonight against MSU, Tuesday against UT Arlington, and next Sunday against the Princeton Tigers, which should present the biggest challenge of the CLC.

Particulars

Essentials for victory

• Make threes — Yes, we were okay from there yesterday, but that was all Devin Booker. We need more from Aaron Harrison, Andrew Harrison and even Tyler Ulis.

• Make free throws — Particularly the big guys, but we have guys like Aaron Harrison shooting sub-70% from the line as well as Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee. In fact, Lee is zero for the regular season.

• Get to the rim — I have been less than pleased with how UK has been getting to the rim. To be fair, last game had a lot of zone, so that will stop penetration. If MSU plays zone, fine, but if not, I want to see dribble drives and more importantly, fouls drawn.

• Get prettier on offense — You have to say UK has been very efficient, but it hasn’t looked efficient, it’s looked chaotic.

• Defend the arc — Teams like MSU need to make shots from three to win. We can’t let them.

• Keep the turnovers down — It’s picking nits, I know, but this team is better than 17% turnovers.

• Keep sharing the ball — I’m waiting for this to stop. Here’s hoping it never does.

This game is unlikely to be competitive, as MSU is very much weaker than the other teams UK has played. Still, UK needs to treat them like Kansas, and if that means beating them by half a hundred, so be it. They get paid the same either way, and event though style points probably don’t matter with this team, they do need to repeat good habits and get out of bad ones.

Go, ‘Cats!