Path to the Mountain Top

If you are like me, and you probably are if you are reading this, you’ve wondered what this UK team would look like if they played a full forty minutes.  It’s really hard to ask a team to play a full forty minutes, by the way.  Most coaches would be doing back flips to get thirty full minutes of play.  As for this team, now we know.  It wasn’t really forty minutes, but it was as close to it as you can get.  And when they do, this team is unbeatable.  And when I say unbeatable, that includes the Nets as well.

 So now that we have that answer, the next big question is, what flipped the switch for this team?  What made them decide to finally keep the foot on the gas the entire game?  I contend that the answer lies square in the events that will happen when the polls come out on Monday.  Consider that this team was given a lot.  They were ranked third before they ever took their first dribble.  I’m not saying they didn’t deserve the ranking, or maybe a better way to put it is no one deserves their ranking, good or bad, when you have zip to back things up.  All UK had to do to maintain their ranking was to win.  And win they did.  Most nights, they put just enough effort in to get the wins.  The sum of the wins is impressive.  The wins themselves mostly were not.  Then something happened.  Losses by Kansas, then Texas happened.  These Cats decided they did want to be number one and I think they know that to be number one, you must play at another level.  What we found out yesterday is this team is scary good when they play the entire game.  They didn’t play a perfect game by any stretch.  They had 15 turnovers,  and shot 68% from the free throw line.  I’ll truly pity the team (after the final horn) that plays these Cats when they play the entire game AND play a perfect game.  I would probably even pity the Lakers.  I do not mean to knock the team for not playing a perfect game and actually my intent is to show that this team does not need to play a perfect game to destroy teams.  All they have to do is follow the game plan, dominate the boards (margin was 20) shoot a high percentage for the game (46%), shoot 30 percent from three, and defend like mad.  The rest tends to take care of itself. 

 When we talk about playing the entire game, we aren’t just talking about consecutive minutes or even stretches of minutes.  We are also talking about minutes by position.  We know what can happen when UK gets play from the 1,2,4 and 5.  The other question asked as been, what happens if UK also got production from the 3 as well.  Now we know.  Miller and his subs, in my mind, was the difference.  The Hogs chose to let UK’s wings have open looks and the wings responded in a dominating fashion.  Miller, Liggins, Harris; the three did not miss a beat as the lead swelled to 46.  This may continue to be the game plan, then again, I don’t think anyone will feel very good about using this game plan.  It can get you spanked.

Blue White Game

Boy was that fun. The blue white game just finished and a Realtor came to show the house I’m in to a nice couple. She is from Louisville and we had fun dissing each other. Next to the game and her nose ring it made my day.

How do you start to describe the potential this team has. I haven’t seen the final stats yet but #8 could happen this year if things go right.

Start with Patrick Patterson. If he isn’t first team All American this year there should be a lynching at some news outlet. He did everything in this game. Faced the basket, made the outside shot, rebounded, played with his back to the basket, ran the break and dunked for a total of 24 points.

The competition between Wall and Bledsoe was fun to watch. Both look to score or make sure someone scores every time they touch the ball. The only person thats gonna stop them is themselves.

Josh Harrellson prove again that the coach with no name was out of his frickin head not to use the kid. He made 3’s, rebounded on both boards and proved hes going to be an asset to this team. He simply plays the game the right way considering his physical abilities. He finished the game with 13 points and 14 rebounds and wont have to sit in the bathroom this year.

Darnell Dodson showed us he can shoot, run the floor and will thrive in coaches offense with 23 points. He needs to work a little more on his penetration but hes gonna score the points outside to keep teams honest.

Darius Miller was quiet in the first half but showed he will do what is needed on defense. He came alive at the start of the second half using his shot game well.

Jon Hood missed most of his 3’s but he sure has a beautiful floater on the drive and is gonna be hard to keep on the bench.

Harris shot his 3’s with confidence and played good defense. He still looks a little clumsy on his drives but will see some playing time.

Cousins and Orton can clog up the middle against big teams, have the ability to score on both the run and on the drive. They combined for 30 points and several nice passes. Both their weaknesses seem to be stopping Wall and Bledsoe on the drive but who’s gonna do that.

Mark Krebs showed he can shoot and looked a lot more comfortable than he did at midnight madness. Did Perry Stevenson play?

And finally DeAndre Liggins had to have fouled out twice but looked a lot more in control than last year.

Defensively this team is going to be real good with the press. The starting Blue team showed they will be the same in the half court game.

The second half showed that these players are able to play togeather no matter who is in the game.

John Wall and Eric Bledsoe are gonna be important to this team but the key player is still Patrick Patterson.

World Champions

Congratulations to Darius Miller and the USA U19 team for winning the U10 world championship for the first time since 1991.

Darius Miller had 8 points and 3 steals in the 88-80 win over Greece. He averaged 5 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.3 blocks (5th in his position in blocks), 1.6 steals (3rd in his position in steals), 1.3 assists and shot 73% from the field while playing 14.4 min. a game. Playing like that against teams in a world competition shows how dependable he is going to be for the Cats.

Jamie Dixon had this team primed to win and even surrendering big leads a couple of times during the last two games didn’t faze the team a bit. Dixon had the kids playing the way you have to play to beat the European champions. Dixon “This team was unique in terms of US teams, in that it was best suited for international play. We may not have had as many name guys as other (US) teams but it really was suited, and I think we selected guys who were suited to the international style of play.” Thinking like that shows that we have learned to compete on the world stage again. These kids were fundamentally sound in their skills rather than being flashy.

A panel of accredited media representatives covering the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship selected the MVP and the All-Star Five of the Tournament. The All-Star Five of the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship featured Taylor (Kansas / Jersey City, N.J.) and Gordon Hayward (Butler / Brownsburg, Ind.) of the USA, Toni Prostran (Croatia), Nikos Pappas (Greece), and Mario Delas (Croatia), who was also selected MVP of the championship.

Things I learned from the games. Darius Miller is going to have a good year. Washington St. and Butler are probably going to be real good teams if their representatives in the games are any example of their teams. Toni Prostran (Croatia), Nikos Pappas (Greece) are possible future NBA players. Mario Delas (Croatia) who was selected MVP of the championship is a future NBA player. World basketball is worth watching if ESPN can get their foot in the door with FIBA for telecast rights. Jamie Dixon is a smart coach and is one of the best coaches in the county and I hope coaches the USA again.

Darius Miller playing great at U19 games

Darius Miller is continuing to improve his play and build his confidence at the U19 World Championships. His defensive play has been outstanding according to Purdue coach Matt Painter.

His ability to block shots and make steals is evident with him leading the team with 11 blocks and 11 steals several coming at critical times in a game. His stats in 16 min. or so of play a game show he is gaining confidence every game. He is shooting over 60 percent while averaging 5 points, almost 4 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.5 steals a game. Coach Calipari and his teammates have to be ecstatic over his play.

You can see highlight video at the fiba tv site.

Darius Miller doing good USA website not so good

Darius Miller had his best game with 10 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks and 3 steals in 15 min. of play against Lithuania.

Darius Miller (Kentucky / Lexington, Ky.) provided the U.S. with a much need spark early in the fourth quarter. With the USA clinging to a 59-56 lead and 9:18 left, Miller pumped in six straight points while making a momentum shifting steal and blocking a shot as the U.S. moved out to a 65-56 lead with 6:26 to be played.

“They didn’t play a lot of guys so I think they got tired so when I came in and just tried to play with a lot of energy and it just worked out for us. My teammates did a good job of getting me the ball when I was open,” said Miller. “I think we played with a lot more intensity in the second half, we came out ready to play and ready to go. They we’re playing with a lot of intensity and we had to match it in the second half to come out with the win.”

USA Basketball on the other hand isn’t doing so good. I’m not going to post the links to the USA Basketball site any more since I’m getting the below now when I visit it.

Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for usabasketball

What is the current listing status for usabasketball?

Site is listed as suspicious – visiting this web site may harm your computer.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 315 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 8 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-07-06, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-04-20.

Malicious software is hosted on 3 domain(s), including paylayos, habrion, tixwagoq.

2 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including habrion, tixwagoq.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS19916 (ASTRUM).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, usabasketball.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for AS19916 (ASTRUM)

What happened when Google visited sites hosted on this network?

Of the 7008 site(s) we tested on this network over the past 90 days, 28 site(s), including, for example, d26toastmasters, tahoemountainsports/, polinsys, served content that resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent.

The last time Google tested a site on this network was on 2009-07-08, and the last time suspicious content was found was on 2009-07-08.

Has this network hosted sites acting as intermediaries for further malware distribution?

Over the past 90 days, we found 2 site(s) on this network, including, for example, d26toastmasters, sonicxpressmail, that appeared to function as intermediaries for the infection of 2 other site(s) including, for example, dawnyawntoastmasters, irbinskas.

Has this network hosted sites that have distributed malware?

Yes, this network has hosted sites that have distributed malicious software in the past 90 days. We found 4 site(s), including, for example, stunninghairstyles, d26toastmasters, vicwebhosting, that infected 4 other site(s), including, for example, r63.org/, dawnyawntoastmasters, socalcamping.

The software doesn’t harm your computer and shows up and deletes with a malewear program but it does shows that either the USA site has been hacked or way less likely since its been on the site so long they are partnering with them for money.

Darius Miller and confidence

Darius Miller had 9 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 block in 20 min. against Egypt in the U19 teams second romp in 3 games. After the first 3 games Darius is averaging 5 rebounds and shooting 66% while averaging 16 min. So far he has led the team with 6 steals against Iran and 9 rebounds against Egypt and if Darius needs a confidence booster this has got to be a big one. Bringing home a championship will be a bigger one.

UK vs LSU PEP TALK

Malcom White didn’t think that UK was very physical when Ole Miss beat Kentucky in the last meeting… “Basically Kentucky’s offense only involves Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson”, said White. “If you can contain those two then you have a great chance to stopping their offense…”

Well, as we all know Mr. White saw a different team on Thursday, a more balanced, tougher defensive team, than he saw in January. And, I think LSU will see a tougher team than the one that played them close in Lexington…

Now that we have a 1 game winning streak, it’s time to move on…As they say, “You can’t win them all until you have won the first one”, and we have that out of the way. LSU is next and we have lots of positives going into that game on Friday…First, we just played the best second half of basketball we have played all year and put 4 players in double figures in our victory over Ole Miss…

Beating LSU will require that self same defensive effort and balanced scoring that was displayed against Ole Miss and I believe that we are going to get it…

Perry is starting to play well again and I thought Darius Miller had a “breakout” type game against Ole Miss; one where the confidence goes sky high and he contributes in a positive way the rest of the tournament. Patrick is being Patrick again as well, while Jodie had a great all round game and didn’t force anything against Ole Miss.

I think that LSU is in T-R-O-U-B-L-E…Uk in Overtime!

UK Beats Ole Miss with Balance and Defense 71-58

“Coach is the one designing plays, but it’s our intensity, it’s our toughness, it’s the way that we battle out there that (determines) down the stretch whether we win or lose” ..so says Patrick Patterson who has spent much of his time defending his coach, Billy Gillispie, during his time in Tampa, and today went out on the court and proved it, along with his teammates.

Billy Gillispie’s young charges showed that there is still basketball being played in the state of Kentucky. Sure it was an also ran, NIT bound, Ole Miss Team we beat, but that was the goal and we did it well, well in the second half.

Kentucky advanced to the second round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Tampa on Thursday with balanced scoring and some tough second half defense.

Post game had BCG saying “that’s the way we should be playing”, referring to the stingy defense that allowed Ole Miss only 18 points in the second frame.

Indeed, it was the D, and the B, as in Balanced Scoring, as Meeks led the way with 25, while Patrick had 15 points and 14 big rebounds. Perry Stevenson had a great game, matched by one Darius Miller, who came in and added 12 points to go with Perry’s 13. Perry cracked the double-digit point barrier for the first time in eight games. Darius Miller, only an 18 year old freshman, equalled his second-highest point total against a Southeastern Conference opponent

“I don’t really care how many points I score so long as we win. When something like that happens I’m glad we have help on the team. People off the bench gave us great energy and help.” said Jodie Meeks. Indeed, BCG that is the way we should be playing, and a lot sooner than now.

Uk’s 13 point victory was a second half clinic on how to play defense and UK must put together two of these halves to have a shot at their next opponent, LSU. “Today we did what the coaches asked, and that included playing hard and tough. We controlled the tempo with our defense and rebounding, things we had not been doing.” UK junior Ramon Harris. Indeed, Ole Miss was only 2 for their last 9 in the last eight minutes enabling UK to post the victory…

LSU is in the headlights…We’ve played ‘em close once. We will do it again. “We’re definitely a better team like this,” Meeks said. “The more scorers you have, the better.” Let the game begin, keep the bubble alive. GO CATS !..!..!

NEXT YEAR….AND THIS ONE.. OLE MISS vs. KENTUCKY

Some things that will probably happen next year…Patrick Patterson will be back, he said so…Jodie will be back…and BCG and Mitch. All will be well next year with UK basketball from the eternal optimist. If you need convincing, think about it. Consider, if you will, what one more year under their belts will do for this bunch of green frosh and Juco’s. Darius Miller is barely 18 yrs old.

One more year of life and maturity and this will be a completely different TEAM. Really, it will be, considering the players will be a year older, wiser, and better. The level of talent that we have coming in; which I feel is vastly superior to this year’s group, will bolster next year’s experienced squad. I expect UK to put three (3) new starters on the floor next year in additon to the BIG 2…They have too, in my opinion, to be competitive.

Matt Pilgrim and Orton will make a BIGGG difference in this program…Perry S. Would be well served to work on his game…Looking at Jon Hood film reminds me a little of a kid we had in here by the name of Rex…Really, the kid is a player and can shoot the basketball. Any contribution from him next year would be the icing on the cake.

Now as for Ole Miss, I look for UK to take this game rather handily using a strong defense on the point of attack which was our Achilles heel in the last game with Ole Miss. David Heurtas, their leading scorer is said to be “day to day” with a foot injury and UK is primed to bust O-U-T…

Let us not forget this is the same UK team that started this season at 5-0 and took #5 Louisville to the wire and the top twenty LSU team as well.

Having a lack of balanced scoring has been a hallmark of the team of late; that and an inordinate number o f turnovers have often been the catalyst for defeat. To secure a victory our Cats must cut back on the turnovers and find scoring from other sources. But, they can and will do it today by 13 points! One Game A t A Time~

Bubble Bursting? UK loses to LSU 73-70

It was another heartbreaking loss for the UK Wildcats, one that saw their coach bench his starting point guard and starting power forward to start the second half, for the more defensive minded Ricky Galloway and Darius Miller. Perhaps frustrated with our inability to shut down more athletic point guards we have encountered at South Carolina and now LSU, BCG went with the taller, quicker, Galloway and he and Miller immediately made their presence felt. Playing a team that is ranked 18th in the land; and looking much better than that, UK battled back from a first half deficit and ALMOST pulled it out…But alas, it was not to be.

The first half found UK trailing and in danger of getting blow out like they did at SC…Patrick Patterson came up big in the first half to keep it closer than it should have been. Even at that, UK again suffer a 1^st half scoring drought of over 4 minutes that would ultimately doom them.

UK let a 10 point second- half lead get away, that they had build on the strength of a stiff defense led by new starters Galloway and Miller. UK came out on fire defensively, and their offense began to click. The newly minted defense seemed to inspire the Cats, as they mounted a second half lead that saw them seemingly take the game in hand…But the guys from LSU hung tough, and riding the hot hand of Marcus Thornton tied the game up in the final seconds with possession. Thornton milked the clock to seven seconds before passing Tasmin Mitchell who hit the game winning shot.

For the most part in the second half, the fans were treated to some inspired basketball by some players that wanted to win…Alas; they just came up 3 points short; Jodie Meeks missing an off-balance 3 that would have tied it at the buzzer.

For UK, it was another disappointing finish, now losers of 6 of their last 9 SEC games, and needing a super effort in the SEC tournament, not to mention finishing the season with two wins.

Next Page »