Out-Classing UGA

It’s funny what I allow UK basketball to do to me. Last night I went from serious berserk, to total elation, all in the span of two hours. I am sure the play to begin the game wasn’t a thing of beauty, but that had little to do with my prior condition. It seems WAVE in Louisville decided to have technical difficulties with the feed. I didn’t think ESPN 360 would have the game as it wasn’t an ESPN production (bad assumption on my part). My wife has always questioned my sanity when it comes to UK, but before it was more in a joking manner. Now, I can tell she is seriously wondering…

Anyway, I missed the first two minutes all together and the first 10 minutes of TV time so I can’t give much input on that time frame. I can tell you that the Cats magically started taking it to the Dogs just as soon as I finally had TV. Just as I took the blame for the loss, I now take full credit for the improved play.

And improved play it was and for me it was across the board. I’ve given Bledsoe a lot of grief and I bet others won’t be so easy to agree with me, but I thought his play was much improved, if nothing else, but on the defensive end. He was in the right spots and did a very good job of staying with his guy. UK seemed to come at UGA in waves and all the dogs could do was try, in vain, to keep their heads above water. And this was a very dangerous place to play. I didn’t think UK would have trouble there at the beginning of the season, but conference play had made me take note as all other east teams had failed to win in Athens. That speaks volumes about the job Fox has done and its yet another quality coach to compete against in the SEC.

How about a HUGE shout out to Dodson. Something clicked and he suddenly had his stroke back. Was anyone else able to tell it was going down just as soon as he released his bombs? It all started with a pull up jumper and from there he was pretty much dead center. I totally agree with coach when he says that this team’s demise will not be poor outside shooting. But good outside shooting never hurts and there was plenty. Dodson, Wall and Patterson all shot 50% or above for the night. The team, as a whole, shot 33% which is really only respectable but the team had to make up for an 0-9 from Miller. Miller made up for the poor outside shooting on his own with awesome D (best of the year by him in my opinion) and some key baskets in the lane.

Wall was Wall at his best, Patterson was Patterson at his best but two other guys really stepped out to the front for me. We all have been looking for that extra guard and I think we finally found him last night. How about a HUGE shout out to may main man at the point, Mr BOOOOGGGGIIIEEE. The MAN is as talented as any center/point guard combo to ever come through UK. You know you have a special talent when your point guard leads the two best breaks of the night, both coast to coast. On one, he does his best Jordan hand switch in mid air and on the next he feeds none other than the power forward for a nifty assist. But the Mainest man of the night was Harris. He seemed to provide a steady hand when things were still a touch dicey in the first half and continued to provide positives throughout his minutes. He contributed some key offensive rebounding, three assists to zero turnovers, a key shot that I thought was a three and some awesome defense.

Overall, this was exactly what UK needed. They played relatively smart, and made UGA pay for the things they tried to take away. Most importantly, they out classed a team they were suppose to out class and took care of a very dangerous team in their house.