All week long we have heard the rumblings and hand wringing from Camp Calipari about how bad practice has been this week and how concerned Calipari was that his third ranked Wildcats would take the Governors from Austin Peay lightly. After three straight marquee matchups on national television, the concern was valid. But other than being another step on the road to 2000 wins, the Governors presented a valuable training point. If the Wildcats continue to uphold their national rankings and get a #1 or #2 seed in the NCAA Tourney, they will face a team very much like the Governors in that #1 vs #16 or #2 vs #15 first round matchup.
Austin Peay certainly started like this was a NCAA matchup as they bolted to a 7-3 lead just three minutes into the game. John Wall hit 3 early 3-pointers and UK grabbed four offensive rebounds in one possession and normalcy seemed restored as UK went on a 13-2 streak to take a 16-9 lead. DeMarcus Cousins slammed home a dunk for a 20-11 lead and it seemed like the Cali-party was on.
The pesky Governor’s would not surrender and whittled the lead to just 3 at 24-21, but then Kentucky reached back for another patented streak that ended with John Wall intercepting a pass and in true Trevard Lindley “pick 6” fashion, took the ball to the hoop for another highlight slam which put UK up 40-24. The Wildcats held on to the momentum to go in at the half up two touchdown 49-35. All in all, a good half for UK as they shot 51% from the floor, hit 6-9 treys and held a 21-11 rebounding advantage.
Coming out in the second half, Wes Channels got the attention of the Wildcats as he scored the first 8 points of the half to cut the lead to 49-43. Couple that with an awkward John Wall landing which left him on the bench and writhing in pain and the faithful at Rupp were anticipating an uneasy half. As quickly as Wall hobbled to the bench, he was back on the floor after a time out and UK fans had to wonder if he was truly made of steel. Patrick Patterson and DeMarcus Cousins brought the UK lead back to 10 and the Governors kept the score respectable most of the second half with the lead fluctuating right around 10.
John Wall had an incredible 94 foot run in which he passed all five Governor defenders and layed it in to put UK up 12, and then Caleb Brown nailed a three to make it 70-61 and it seemed this would be a fight to the finish with around 8:00 remaining. Kentucky then reeled off the next 10 points to go up 80-61 and it was all showtime from there on out. The highlight of the game was a supposed alley-oop from Bledsoe to Wall, who in midair flipped it to Patterson for the slam. When this Kentucky team is on, they are very Globetrotter-ish and the only thing missing at this point was Meadowlark Lemon with a bucket of confetti.
Kentucky rolls to an 11-0 start with win 1999 and the historic 2000th win is right at 48 hours away. The always smooth Patrick Patterson led the way with 21 points and 9 boards and DeMarcus Cousin is stating his case for SEC Freshman of the week with 19 points and 8 boards. Wall was not quite the same after his freak injury but still had 17 points and 6 assists. And tonight’s game brought a standing ovation welcome to DeAndre Liggins who seems to be grabbing Ramon Harris’s minutes as he logged 12 minutes in his first game at Rupp of the year.
All in all, this was a statistical slaughter, as UK out rebounded the Governors 40-23 and nailed 8-12 3-p0inters. The big stat of the night was the 18-18 UK went on free throws. The UK record for team perfection in a game was 19-19 which was last done in 1989, but this was UK’s best FT shooting night since they went 11-11 vs Auburn on 2-27-1993.
For the complete game stats, go here.
Keep following www.http://wildcatbluenation.com for the best in Kentucky basketball and football news, rumors, and opinions. By Kentucky fans for Kentucky fans