UF and Random Stuff

These Cats do have the will to win. I’m not really sure if that is the correct phrase, but it’s the sheik, in phrase that’s going around. What this team really has is the potential to beat teams in any type of game, and when they really want to they can focus long enough to get it done. They also have a confidence in their ability to make plays when they need to. I can’t really compare them to any college team I’ve seen before. I think they are a more well-rounded bunch than the 96 team. Probably more talented 1-7 but obviously much younger. The 96 team came at you in waves and the game was usually over in the first 10 minutes. This team could do that if they could focus for more than 5 minutes at a time. The big question going into post season with the 96 team was if they could handle a close game situation. No such question with this bunch. What this team reminds me of is more of a championship caliber NBA team. Not in talent, not in how they play, but how those type teams approach an NBA season as a whole. They don’t blow people out every night, but they do get some easy W’s. Most of the games are decided in the last five minutes or less, and at the end of the year they’ve clutched their way to winning 90% of their games.

On the flip side, I now agree with Cal that this team needs to focus for longer stretches and put people away. You know they can play in the clutch. They are very battle tested from that area. They are getting better and better and its time to see them flex. Beside, Cal is correct in that one of these times, a team is going to hit that lucky shot, ala the UT walk on, and UK will not be able to recover. This is a mojo I don’t want to play with because we have no idea how this team will react if it lost in the clutch.

It must be very disheartening to take Wall and Boogie out of what they want to do only to see Bledsoe, Orton and Miller step up, fill in the slack, and get it done. You simply can’t focus on one or two guys and beat UK. You can’t take Patterson out so I wouldn’t even bother there. He gets his 16-7 no matter what. I do think he needs to be more assertive and get his numbers up to 20-12.

Some of us noted during the game that Wall still doesn’t look right. He did end up with 19 and 7 of those came down the stretch, but I am concerned health wise. It may just be mental fatigue, which doesn’t change my concern one bit.

The general feeling is that Liggins and Harris were pretty much no shows. I do not disagree and the box score doesn’t either. Liggins had two turn overs and Harris had one fall in the lap rebound. But I feel strongly that an even bigger contributor was Millers much improved play. He only had nine points and a few boards, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Miller was much more involved on defense and mixing it up underneath. He didn’t always come up with the ball, but at least he was in there. He did a better job of getting in the lane and making his best shot, and he knocked down some threes when UK needed it.

Daniel Orton was a beast inside. Those blocks were unreal. They kept coming at him and he kept swatting them away. It looked to me as if one went into the second level. I won’t call them cheap seats because I wouldn’t give a dollar for any of them.

Bledsoe was the beast. I don’t know why he was the only one that noticed UF was not going to challenge people who drove to the rim, but I’m glad at least he did. He was by far the fastest player on the floor and he steadied the Cats when they needed it most. It was good to see his shooting eye return which also was a dagger into the head of the gator beast.

Finally, Cal goes for a tie of Rupp’s conference win streak Saturday. Granted, almost all of them in CUSA, but at least a Cat coach will be the one to tie/break it. It’s nice keeping things like that in the family.