Injury Updates

January 25, 2008

Jodie Meeks and Derrick Jasper have been practicing this week, but still aren’t fully healthy. They are both probable for tomorrow.

Joe Crawford, who’s suffering from plantar fasciitis has hardly been able to practice this week. His status for tomorrow’s game is up in the air, but it’s possible he will be able to play.

Written by Vic · Filed Under News

Billy Gillispie doing it his way

January 25, 2008

Jason King of Yahoo! Sports, has a nice story on Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie.

It goes into his Eat, Sleep, Breath approach on coaching basketball, and how he’s doing it way.

It’s a very nice piece filled with quotes.

Including…this after the victory over Tennessee

“What’s up, coach? It’s your No. 1 fan! ”

Gillispie turned and shook hands with Buster Patterson, the father of Kentucky freshman Patrick Patterson.

“Gettin’ better, aren’t we?” Gillispie said.

“A lot better,” Patterson replied. “Keep it up. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Gillispie shakes his head.

“Yeah,” he said, “but we’ve had plenty of days now.”

Written by Vic · Filed Under News

Couple of Headlines

January 24, 2008

Perry Stevenson has more confidence

Billy Gillispie likes the improved play of Perry Stevenson, thinks he will become a very good player.

Stevenson contributes his better play the result of giving more effort in practice.

“I’m just going hard on every play in practice,” he said. “Sometimes I’d take plays off in practice because it’s too tough or we’ve been going for a long time. I’m breaking out of that habit, and it just (carries) over to the game.”

Patrick Patterson Learning

This season is a learning experience for Patrick Patterson.

Billy Gillispie says Patterson’s play has been great, but “He’s not the perfect player yet”.

Written by Vic · Filed Under News

Hump Links : Victory Edition

January 23, 2008

Hump Links

Coming off last night’s big victory, the news of today is certainly about that. So, today I’m going to just give you some news and blog headlines to pour over.

Updated 3:22 pm EST

11:30 pm EST

Written by Vic · Filed Under News

Kentucky vs Tennessee Game Thoughts

January 22, 2008

Oh what a beautiful sight! Finally something for the Kentucky fans to cheer about.

It wasn’t looking good there for awhile. It was kinda like…Oh no!, here we go again.

I had faith in these guys and knew we could do it, but you know how that goes. I’m just glad it wasn’t a repeat of the Florida game.

These guys look headed in the right direction. They claw, fight and just don’t give up. I’m very proud if this team tonight and they should feel the same.

What about Perry Stevenson? The young man stepped up and did a very good job. He’s my player of the game. Please just keep your shots closer to the basket, that was ugly.

Patrick Patterson was a beast tonight, doing a little bit of everything. The guy is also a great passer and him feeding Stevenson was great.

I gave my keys to winning in a previous post. They pretty much did what I thought was needed. That free throw shooting sure was important. “Smooth” definitely earned that nickname tonight. Great job from Ramel Bradley.

I thought we took Tennessee out of their game at stretches there in the second half. We forced a slower tempo and our defense stepped up when we needed it most late in the game. We started grabbing important rebounds, limiting their shots. This was key, along with making the free throws at the end.

I want to congratulate Chris Lofton on setting the SEC 3 point record and commend his play against Kentucky. There are not many players who’ve had the career success, as he has against us.

I can now go to sleep happy…

Written by Vic · Filed Under Blog

Kentucky Upsets Tennessee 72-66

January 22, 2008

Kentucky versus Tennessee Kentucky erases a 10 point deficit and hits timely free throws to down Tennessee 72-66.

Patrick Patterson led the way for the ‘Cats with 20 points, 8 boards, along with 3 assist. Read more

Written by Vic · Filed Under Featured News, News

Looking at tonight’s game against Tennessee

January 22, 2008

Coming off a OT loss at Florida, the ‘Cats are hungry and want to get back to winning.

Player Analysis

Patrick Patterson has been leading the way statistically with 16.6 points and 8 boards per. He has struggled somewhat the past couple of games and will need to get back into form and come up big against Tennessee.

Ramel Bradley has been playing his heart out and leading this team, scoring 20+ points in the last six games. He’s a work horse logging many, many minutes.

Ramel needs to cut down on the sloppiness at times and make better decisions with ball.

Hopefully Jodie Meeks, who’s been injured of late can back his shot form back and contribute the way we know he can.

Joe Crawford can be a mixed bag at times, but has that inside drive knack that’s needed. Needs to knock down the outside shot when be. Drive and get to the line.

Keys To Winning

This game is going to be a tough one for Kentucky. It will take our best effort all season long to pull off an upset.

Tennessee likes to run and has the players to do it. We are going to have to keep the pace slow and play a somewhat chess match.

We will need to play smart, limit their possessions and not turn the ball over. Turnovers have plagued us this season, but we did do a better job against Florida.

We shoot foul shots well, so getting to the line is a must. Coach Gillispie brought this up yesterday, and I agree.

We have struggled lately from 3 point land. We have guys as in Bradley, Crawford and Meeks who can hit these shots. They need to knock those down.

Defense, Defense, Defense. You can never stress this enough. Defense does and can win you games. We need to give a strong effort out there on this. We’ve shown in games past we’re capable of doing it well.

Play the whole game well

We have at times played one half well and the other terribly. If we can put a solid effort in the whole game, then this will work wonders towards a win.

Written by Vic · Filed Under Blog