Kentucky Wildcat Basketball: How Important Is The UK-UT Game To The Cats?

Anyone worried yet? Little beads of sweat building up on your forehead every time you think about Sunday’s match up with UT? Does that #2 seed they are playing for make you nervous? Are you concerned about a letdown after the huge game with Vandy on Tuesday night? Well, if you think you are worried now, throw this one into the pot. This might be Bruce Pearl’s last regular season game as the coach of the Tennessee Volunteers.

With Pearl’s status up in the air until the NCAA gets their June meetings into full swing, Pearl is looking down the barrel of a 12 ga. shotgun with only one thing on his mind. Just keep winning. Because at this point, that is the only thing he can do to keep his job prospects for next season alive. He could very well be coaching his last regular season SEC game, at home, against the Kentucky Wildcats. Anyone else think that he is really going to want this one? Add in the fact that the Vols lost at Rupp earlier in the year, and it is every possible revenge factor in the world for Pearl to want to use as buttons to push with his on again-off again Vols. Combine that with UK’s apparent inability to win on the road, and you have a recipe for disaster.

So, can the Cats muster the spirit and will to win that can overcome the Vols on Sunday at High Noon? I think so, but it is going to take a 110% effort from everyone on both sides of the ball to get it done. There can be no disappearing acts by Darius Miller. Josh Harrellson must grab every board in his reach, and Brandon Knight, Terrance Jones, and Doron Lamb better be ready to live up to every ounce of the hype and potential they have if UK wants to leave Thompson-Boling arena with a W on Sunday.

Is this the new version of the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral? Well, you could bill it that way. Tennessee is the very embodiment of lawlessness at this point, in any direction you care to look. Calipari and Co. are trying to re-establish the Cats dominance and presence as the new “Sheriff”s in town in the SEC, so they will need to go in and clean house on the Vols if they want that #2 seed bad enough in the SEC tournament. Not to mention the fact that the Cats are trying to play themselves into a 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA tournament as well.

John Calipari is the master of turning a phrase, and how to motivate his troops for a game. But I would hope that there would be no need for motivation for this game. However, I hope and pray he has some kind of a speech ready to give his kids on Sunday morning.

All year long, I have looked for a sign from this team that they were ready to take the next step. To move to the next level and make this season into the success we all thought it would be last November. This is now the time, and the place to make that a reality. Tennessee is ripe for the picking and Pearl may be on his last legs. But remember this, those are usually the times when teams like Tennessee are the most dangerous. This could very well be Pearl’s last game in Knoxville, period. Time to make sure that memory of playing UK is one he will have a hard time sleeping with for years to come.

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