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Well, I don't know about you, dear reader, whether ye be from LSU or Kentucky, but I am completely drained of emotion. I feel wrung out, like a laundered shirt put through an old-fashioned wringer. I have no intensity left, so this celebration thread may be rather dispassionate.
Congratulations, and lamentations, to LSU. Tough loss for them after an incredible effort, an effort very few teams have any chance of matching in Rupp Arena. LSU was flat-out heroic in this game, and I really hope they play well enough the rest of the season to get into the NCAA Tournament. I love their team (when they are playing somewhere else), but they have got to do more of this and quit putting up the head-scratchers. If all you can do is get inspired to beat Kentucky, your team is emotionally incomplete.
The big thing, and maybe the most valuable thing, is that Kentucky won a knife fight in which they were pretty much evenly matched. Kentucky showed a lot of heart in this game. They also did a lot of dumb things. We will, for the moment, put the dumb things to the side to be dealt with in the postmortem, and concentrate on the good stuff.
Box Score
Final box score from a heart stopper in Rupp: pic.twitter.com/ENe6UjqCk7
— Kentucky Athletics (@UKAthleticsNews) February 22, 2014
Observations
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Man, LSU is a bad matchup for us. They really are. Their guards are inspired beyond all reason (and not just Anthony Hickey, whom we all know has reason to be inspired), and they have a big, thick, athletic front line that is very tough for our defense to handle.
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I'll be honest, I had no confidence in James Young making both those last two free throws he shot. I'm so glad he made my trepidation look foolish.
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LSU made an unbelievable number of challenged shots they had no business making. Kentucky, on the other hand, missed at least six layups.
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Julius Randle in the overtime was simply everything we could ever want. He was a leader and held down Johnny O'Bryant III, he rebounded like a madman, and he made the game winner to boot. He also defended like he was personally offended with O'Bryant. What I want to know is, can we bottle that?
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I love that Kentucky was able to win a tough game like this where they spent more time on the short end than the long. Yeah, there is a counterpoint to that, but let's save it for later and be happy.
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I now know why Calipari doesn't play Dominque Hawkins. He has zero confidence shooting the ball. That's okay, he'll get it next season.
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Did Marcus Lee make a big play or what? And Alex Poythress continues to do great things. Yes he missed a layup, save it.
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This is a game I was more worried about than I let on. Let's hope we don't have to deal with them in the SEC Tournament.
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Don't worry, be happy! Kentucky won a tough game that they easily could have, and perhaps should have, lost. That's a good reason to be happy. There are no teams built like LSU among the top crust of the NCAA.
I like this Kentucky team. They have a chance. While this was not the game we were hoping for, blowing out LSU was always unlikely because of their personnel. Smaller, faster teams give them hell, but big, strong teams make them drool. We saw why tonight.
Part of me wants to be disappointed, but I'm just too darn happy with the win. Tomorrow, I'll be more critical, but for now, I'm celebrating a tough win over a good team.