Flat Cats run into buzzsaw Huskies and implode 84-67
By Paul Jordan
photo credit – David Perry, Lexington Herald Leader
What happened?
Early season holiday tournaments are a weird creature, especially the ones in Mexico or Hawaii. It takes your team out of their element, flies them thousands of miles away from home and across several time zones, and forces them to play three basketball games in about two and a half days against competition usually reserved for April. Throw in last night’s bitter, intense, physical, emotional matchup against the Washington Huskies and then add another game 24 hours and you have a recipe for a letdown.
At least that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
The signs of a letdown were evident from the beginning when during the first six minutes of the game, the Huskies outscored Terrence Jones 13-10. That’s right, only Terrence Jones scored for Kentucky for the first 6:44 of the game when Liggins broke the non Jones scoring silence with a layup that made it 13-12 Huskies. Instead of that being a wake up call, Kentucky continued to sleep walk through the first half, letting Kemba Walker and the Connecticut guards penetrate with ease and get easy baskets. On the offensive end, Kentucky missed several easy shots on drives to the basket, and the balls were bouncing off the front rim, indicating a tired team.
Regardless, Kentucky was only down 28-22 when Terrence Jones received his second foul and the customary seat on the bench. Doron Lamb joined him a few minutes later and “it” all fell apart. And it was ugly. The Huskies took control with a 22-7 run to take a halftime lead of 50-29 and the halftime numbers were frighteningly scary. The Wildcats shot just 30% for the first half, compared to Connecticut’s 62.1%. They Huskies drilled 71.4% of their treys for the half and outrebounded Kentucky 20-14.
As if the first half was not ugly enough, the WBN’s stat guru Corey Price texted me the following chilling information. Seems that you had to go way back to the Billy Clyde era to find such ineptness in the first half of a game. The last time Kentucky allowed 50 points in the first half was when VMI dumped 57 on UK on November 14, 2008. And the last time Kentucky trailed by at least 21 points in the first half? February 12, 2008. Then, we trailed Vanderbilt by 30 at the half. Yikes.
I’d like to say that it got better in the first half, but it really didn’t. There was some early excitement when Kentucky got 3-pointers from Jones-Miller-Jones which cut the lead to 15 points, but UConn responded. Kentucky later cut the lead to 13, but that was really as close as they would get. For Kentucky, it was an exhausted team and too much Kemba Walker who finished with 29 points. Kentucky won the second half 38-34, but it was too little, too late as UConn coasted to an 84-67 victory.
It was another big night for Terrence Jones, who finished with 24 points and a bit of Kentucky history. Through five games, Jones has scored 106 points. That is the second best total for a player in his first five games at Kentucky. Cotton Nash holds the mark with 110 points and Jones finished ahead of such names as Johnny Cox (103 in 1956) and Louie Dampier (101 in 1964). It’s definitely good company for Jones to be in. And I really need to find a way to charge everyone for the stat texts I get from Corey Price during the Kentucky games. It’s amazing stuff.
Darius Miller finished with 15 points, but other than that, not too much to highlight for UK. It was a night that UConn outshot UK 58% – 36%, and that really was the most telling stat. I’m not going to call any players out tonight. You saw the game and know who underperformed, and we know that this game is an anomaly for this season. Kentucky is still a very solid team and there is no need to freak out like they are the Miami Heat.
It’s just one game, out of 35 games or so this season. Let’s hope that Calipari can us this as a learning situation for UK and that is all I am going to say on this game. I think we saw a true indication of what Kentucky can do last night versus Washington, but unfortunately they left it on the floor tonight. OK, I’m done.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
For complete game stats, go here.
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