by Alan Smith
Throughout this season, UK has played in a plethora of places around the country and abroad. Everywhere from Assembly Hall in Bloomington, to the O’Connell Center in Gainesville, to Madison Square Garden in the heart of New York, to the Sun Palace Ballroom on the shores of Cancun. Ok, I admit that last one might not have been necessary, but you get the point. UK has been able to get wins despite the hostile environments they’ve played at. But the one large task ahead of Kentucky is this weekend, and it’s the one difficult task they face late every season. And that is playing on the road at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gym (not to be confused with Kentucky’s Memorial Coliseum).
Located in Nashville on Vanderbilt’s campus, Memorial Gym was constructed in the early 1950’s as a memorial to the students and alumni that served and were killed in World War II. It is referred to sometimes as “The Fenway Park of College Basketball”. In many ways similar to Fenway, Memorial Gym is uniquely different than most other arenas. There are many common flaws to their arena that the Commodores use as an advantage to them. It is difficult for many opponents to come into their arena and come away with an easy victory. It is anything but that. The differences are vast in comparison with other venues in the SEC and throughout the country. The benches for both teams are located on the baselines instead of the sidelines are one of the major differences you will notice. It takes away the ability to coach and receive instructions for the opposing teams. Another difference is the wide amount of space on the court in between the sidelines and the court. The court is also elevated, leaving Vanderbilt’s students practically on the sidelines. The goalpost is also a problem, being that it is a double goalpost instead of a single one, and the shot clock is located underneath the basket instead of on top. All of these are contributing factors to what causes problems for the opposing teams.
The Commodores have won 78 percent of their home games throughout their history in that venue. No. 1 Tennessee was not fortunate enough when they made their first trip with that such ranking, and it showed when they went home with a big, fat “L” in the record books. UK has had some big games against the Commodores in Nashville, and some bad ones as well. But most recently, they have been bad games, usually where Vanderbilt player and students try to make a mockery of UK basketball and nothing is done about it. The record speaks for itself, as UK is 4-6 in Nashville in the past decade. Two of the big wins, one of which was more than 10 years ago, occurred in season where UK was in the national spotlight competing for a national title. UK pulled off impressive wins against Vandy in both 1998 with Nazr Mohammed’s running bank shot, and in 2003 where the Cats rallied back against Vandy and beat them in the second half on both sides of the court. The remaining teams from each of the other six seasons failed to win at Memorial and had sub-par performances, including the nightmare from 2007 we’d all love to forget.
For the Cats to win this weekend, they will have to continue to do what they have been doing pretty much every game, and that is rely on each other to win. The maturity that this team has shown since the beginning of the season has grown and UK has shown that they do not need just John Wall to win games, but everyone else from Cousins to Krebs. This team has found different ways to win and Saturday they will find another. This team has fought incredibly to win games in tough situations, and they have been resilient. But the focus level will have to be high coming into Saturday night, and they cannot let the crowd faze them, which will give Vanderbilt a huge home court advantage in that sense. If so, they will take a 2.5 game lead in front of the Commodores and have another impressive road win for the tournament committee. Otherwise, its back to the drawing board if they cant win this weekend.
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