UK Defeats Arkansas, 86-63, and a Recruiting Update

After gutting out two SEC road wins last week, the Cats returned home tonight to face-off against Mike Anderson’s Arkansas Razorbacks. In the first half, Miller opened the game with the first two field goals for UK, including an and-1, and the Cats jumped out to a 8-0 lead.

Anthony Davis then added to UK’s early blitz, scoring 9 points on 4/4 shooting to help UK build a 19-6 lead with 11:17 left in the half. Kyle Wiltjer and Doron Lamb added 13 points off the bench, and the Cats controlled the first half on the defensive end, allowing only 9 first-half field goals and blocking 8 shots. UK lead by as many as 20, and took a 37-21 lead into the half.

In the second half, Miller continued his aggressive play, scoring UK’s first 7 points. Davis had several scoring spurts, and the Cats shot a blistering 57% from the field, en route to a 23-point victory to improve to 4-0 in SEC play. Here are some key stats from the game:

• Anthony Davis had 7 blocks to set the UK single-season record for blocks. He broke the record in the first-half of what is only the 19^th game of UK’s season. Davis truly is a once in a lifetime player. The extremely gifted freshman also had a career-high 27 points on 10/12 shooting to go along with 14 rebounds.
• Doron Lamb appeared to get out of his recent shooting slump, scoring 14 points off the bench.
• Darius Miller also snapped out of his slump, scoring 11 points on 5/8 shooting.
• Marquis Teague had a career-high 9 assists to only 3 turnovers.
• The Cats held the Razorbacks to 23 field goals and blocked 13 shots.
• The Cats continued to shoot a high % at the free-throw line, going 19/25 from the line, which is 76%.
• The Cats outrebounded Arkansas 38-23.
• The Cats host a surging Alabama team Saturday at noon, so the Cats will have to transition from a high-scoring, running-team in Arkansas, to a grind-it-out, defensive squad in the Crimson Tide.

Also, in a late night recruiting update, UK recruit Amile Jefferson could be making his college choice by the end of January. In an interview with SNY.tv today, Jefferson’s father, Musgrove, had the following to say on his son:

"At the end of the week we’ll have a conversation and I think he could wrap this up in the next few weeks. I’m thinking by the end of January he will know."

The 5* power forward is considering Duke, UK, N.C. State, Ohio State, UConn and Villanova. When asked about the schools recruiting him, Jefferson’s dad had the highest praise for UK and how they’ve developed talent:

"That’s another classic program. A lot of folks just think they bring talent in but I’ve seen the growth of the talent that they’ve brought in. I’ve had an opportunity to see the freshmen that are there now last year and watched them grow. There’s no doubt that they were going to be special players but you can see improvement in their games from a year ago to now and that just doesn’t happen by mistake. I know that there’s development going on there. He (referring to Amile) needs that, so that intrigues him. They play at a high level all the time. They continue to bring in dominant players and are always going to compete at the highest level. All that matters to him."

I’m no expert recruiting analyst, but I’d say Jefferson and his family REALLY like UK.