Kentucky Wildcats 5 for Wednesday: Both Cats, Cards come into Friday's war at the top of their games
By Paul Jordan
It’s time.
Finally, the Kentucky/Louisville game is just a few days away and we can let the bile that has been building up toward our rivals unleash. Both teams appear to be at the top of their games for Friday’s matchup and John Clay has some stats on how well the Cardinals have been playing lately:
- Over the last two games, the Cardinals have averaged 1.435 points per possession versus Western Kentucky and 1.315 versus Morgan State. Keep in mind, those are 5-7 and 4-6 teams, but these are impressive numbers.
- The Cards have made 33 of 53 3-pointers over those two games. Of course, Darius Miller and DeAndre Liggins were not defending them either.
- Ken Pomeroy has this as a battle of top 10 teams and has UK ranked 6th and Louisville ranked 9th
Despite growing up near Lexington, the Dirty Birds Preston Knowles says that the Kentucky game is “just another game” and really “more for the fans”. He thinks that the Cards Big East slate is more important than the in state rivalry. Looks like Preston is the only one in the Commonwealth that feels this way.
Sure, Preston feels that way now, but just wait until Terrence Jones takes his hairbrush.
Now the big question about the Kentucky/Louisville game is who in the heck scheduled this game on a Friday afternoon at noon? Seems that this was strictly a CBS decision and according to CBS Executive VP of programming Mike Aresco, the fact that both Christmas and New Years falls on a Saturday had a lot to do with it:
"“This is highly unusual,” he said. “We’ve always been able to find a Saturday. We just couldn’t find one. We had a potential two-hour slot on New Year’s Eve, and we talked it over with the schools, the Big East and the (Southeastern Conference). We were able to work it out. We’re happy, because we really didn’t want to lose a game like that.”"
Just a word of advice to business owners in the Bluegrass. Close up at 11AM on New Years Eve. I suspect there is going to be a wave of “food poisoning” striking the Commonwealth around noon.
Can we end the debate right now? I know that a lot of UK sites are pushing for Doron Lamb to start over Darius Miller and to that, I give a big no, no, no, no, no, no. First off, Darius Miller has done nothing to lose his starting job and he is too damn good of a defender to not start, especially against a team that loves the three like Louisville. Against Coppin State, Darius had 7 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists in just 27 minutes a game. So Darius does a lot more than score when he is in there. And yes, Doron is good, but I think he is a much better weapon being instant offense off the bench. Let’s not mess with the chemistry right now, people. Doron is playing close to starter’s minutes and there is no need to create a controversy where there is none.
Wow.
I know that this is totally not related to UK but I had to include this in the 5. Seeing that Steve Spurrier is facing FSU for the first time since he left Florida, Saturday Down South dusts off some classic Spurrier quotes about his former nemesis. South Carolina plays the Seminoles in the Chick-Fil-a Bowl. Enjoy.
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