Defense remains the key for Kentucky Wildcats basketball

Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

And what is the Thanksgiving weekend without some football? And for the first time, the Kentucky/Louisville game is moved to rivalry week, which for the record, I love. However, maybe because this is UK/UL,  there are going to be those that nitpick the rivalry and wonder who this game really benefits. Here is the latest example.

"In 1994, the Cardinals were still playing as an independent. Across the years, as U of L worked its way through Conference-USA, the Big East and The American Athletic Conference, the UK-U of L game helped the Cardinals enhance the perception of their program. However, now that U of L has a presence in one of the power five conferences, it no longer “needs” games with UK of the SEC to establish its pigskin legitimacy. Regular matchups with Florida State and Clemson and occasional meetings with the Miami Hurricanes and Notre Dame will serve just fine to authenticate Louisville’s competition level. Conversely, until UK shows the ability to win games against the (non-Vanderbilt) SEC East rivals it plays every year, Louisville stands as the one game annually on the Wildcats schedule that the Cats win with even a meager degree of frequency that moves the needle with UK fans. Kentucky’s 8-12 record against Louisville in the modern Governor’s Cup may not sound like anything to brag about. It beats the heck out of 1-29, 0-28, 2-16, 2-13 and 0-3, though. Those are, in order, the recent streaks produced by UK against SEC East rivals Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Missouri."

I really don’t get WHY this is a constant story for some scribes in the Bluegrass. You don’t hear South Carolina fans saying that Clemson fans need the rivalry more. Or Florida fans about FSU. Or any other rivalry this weekend. To be honest, the ACC, while technically a power conference has just one powerhouse team and that is FSU. And even though FSU is undefeated, there is talk that their weak ACC schedule can drag them out of a playoff. So I think Louisville needs this as much as Kentucky.

Just play football and quit this incessant whining on “who needs more”. Football in the Bluegrass state is never going to elevate itself until we do this.

Nov 15, 2014; Knoxville, TN, USA; Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Stoops during the first half against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

The key for the Kentucky Wildcats this weekend, is being able to put aside the last month or so of miserable performances and being able to hit the reset button. And this all starts with the defense.

"Seems like a good time to regroup. UK coach Mark Stoops is hoping he was able to press the reset button on a few bad habits, while infusing some enthusiasm back into his team with a bowl bid still on the line at Louisville — the site of UK’s last road win, in 2010, 21 road games ago. “We’re excited and rested and ready to get to this challenge,” Stoops said. “. . . I think the whole staff and everybody’s excited about it. We talked about it after the last game. It’s a beautiful thing, as we have this opportunity in front of us to get the sixth victory against a big rival. A lot of people would believe in this state that it’s the most important game of the year.” UK’s biggest problem over the past month has been defense. Yes, it has played some really good teams. But its tackling has seemed to atrophy over the course of the season, and injuries left holes for opponents to exploit. UK gave up five yards a carry in November and 225 yards per game. Only 18 teams in America gave up more yardage in November For Stoops, a defensive coach, this has been particularly frustrating. So one of the things he did during the bye week was take his team back to basics. “It was just good to get out,” Stoops said of the team’s off week. “After a couple of days rest, get out and do some good, competitive work. Get back to some fundamentals. Do some things that we do through camp where we go good against good, do some one-on-ones. We do some half-lines where we just technique-wise need to et better sometimes through the season. You get so enamored with the Xs and Os and assignments that you drift from some of the basics. We obviously try not to. We constantly have individual (drills) in certain things. But it was good to spend more time with that last week.”"