Kentucky Wildcat Basketball: Looking For Our Shining Knight

OK, We can all now take a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief. Had anyone told me that Brandon Knight would hit the winning basket in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, I would have said things were just as they should be. Had they told me it would be his only basket of the game, and that we would be taken from wire to wire by Princeton, I would have laughed. And I would have been dead wrong.

Young teams can have a case of the jitters in big games, and especially in tournament action, and that is why the critics claim that winning with a team based mostly on Freshman play is a fool’s errand. And we saw exactly why today. If not for the superior play of Kentucky’s three upperclassmen on the floor, and some key substitution minutes from Eloy Vargas, the Cats would be sitting right where the Louisville Cardinals are tonight, and my Brackets would look even worse. The Cardinals fortunes aside, the Cats have lived to fight another day, and I am going to try and decipher what was wrong with our talented super freshmen trio. The three amigos were practically bereft of offense in their first NCAA Tournament game, and their defense was suspect as well. As for the game’s big moments, I would also not have believed that a three pointer by Terrence Jones would be one of the game’s biggest baskets.

So, even though the Three Amigos were mostly silent for this game, when crunch time cranked up it was Knight and Jones who helped deliver the W. While Miller, Harrellson and Liggins kept the Cats in the game all day, and Harrellson practically willed the Cats through the last 5 minutes, it was Knight who took the game winning shot with nerves of steel. Is this a harbinger of things to come, or a warning to the Big Blue fan base that tougher times may be ahead?

I tend to think that no one is going to keep this team down for more than one game, so I suspect the Cats will bounce back from this and play very well against WVU on Saturday.But watching all of the games so far, there have been very few true blowouts, and almost every game has had the chance to go either way in the last 10 minutes. The Cats played Princeton’s game and it showed in the box score and on the court. Our youngsters need to learn from this game quickly. Of course a few weeks ago, this team would have wilted in the final minute or two. That did not happen. The Cats have learned how to play close games and come out on top. That should serve them well as the tournament moves on. Let’s hope Coach Cal has his best Gipper speech and can get these guys back up in a hurry, because they have to get it in gear for Huggy Bear and his endless supply of track suits.

The NCAA Tournament is where legends are born, and this team is not yet ready to call it a season and go home. So they have learned the first part of tournament play, survive and advance. Now let’s see if they can remember how to play Kentucky Basketball when they face West Virginia. It is going to take everything the Three Amigos have got to get the Cats through the next round. And it is also going to take a lot more of that upper classmen leadership that was on the court today. The whole package has to be there for this group of Cats to cut down the nets this year, and I can’t wait for them to take it to the Mountaineers next.

So, while I wait impatiently for the next installment of UK 2010-2011 to fire up and go, I want to see our Shining Knight in his full armor, slaying the dragons come Saturday. Tournament Time…..oh yeah, it’s gonna be Knight Time.

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