FYI Saluki fans showed up at Rupp. Lot of maroon in the crowd and a big SIU chant when they went up 6 in the 2nd half
That's the best I've seen a Saluki team in years considering we were playing at Rupp. We would have won that game except for one glaring stat. Out rebounded by 29. I now K is big and athletic but disappointed that we didn't block out. Cook looks like the leader and go to guy on this team and announcers said Pippen could play on any SEC team. Bol needs lots of playing time to get back to where he was.
The opportunity to beat a power 5 team was there for the taking, UK did not play well, just couldn't make big shots.
1 Defense was really good
2 Cook and Pippin are the real deal
The Bad:
1 59 points still cant make the 3
2 Thik Bol was awful, but its probably rust and or injury, lost his explosiveness
3 Hinson still can't get it done, lol
UK looked like a team that hadn’t even practiced together ... sloppy as can be, but enough size and athleticism to take care of business. I’m sure they’ll be much better in March.
Aaron Cook was really impressive. Pippen can be a load if he locks in, but he’s got to work harder on the glass. On the negative side, realize it’s just one game against elite athleticism, but still not seeing it with Bartley. Not convinced he’s a starter on a conference champion type team. Bol also was pretty rough tonight.
Monday is key for any chance to make the non-conference part of the season relevant for a change. Have to regroup and beat Buffalo (on ESPNU vs West Va right now) at home.
UK looked like a team that hadn’t even practiced together ... sloppy as can be, but enough size and athleticism to take care of business. I’m sure they’ll be much better in March.
Aaron Cook was really impressive. Pippen can be a load if he locks in, but he’s got to work harder on the glass. On the negative side, realize it’s just one game against elite athleticism, but still not seeing it with Bartley. Not convinced he’s a starter on a conference champion type team. Bol also was pretty rough tonight.
Monday is key for any chance to make the non-conference part of the season relevant for a change. Have to regroup and beat Buffalo (on ESPNU vs West Va right now) at home.
Agree about Bartley. Liked Pippen's offensive game - definitey improved. If he could turn into a rebounding beast, we'd be so much better. If the rebounds were closer to even, we win this game no question. Hinson in postgame said there was nothing we could do about the rebounding .. because of their size evidently. I say bullfeces. Technique and desire makes a huge difference. That should be a point of emphasis in practice. Think Jeff Early - rebounding beast at 6' 1".
I am cautiously impressed. UK is a top 25 team and Salukis hung tough....good to see.
Hinson said "there was nothing that could have been done" about the rebounding?
I beg to differ. If Bol was in better positions and didn't have that much rust, we would have been much closer in that stat. Bol has to get better - I'm confident he will but there were a lot of areas where he didn't have optimal technique in boxing out.
Hinson said "there was nothing that could have been done" about the rebounding?
I beg to differ. If Bol was in better positions and didn't have that much rust, we would have been much closer in that stat. Bol has to get better - I'm confident he will but there were a lot of areas where he didn't have optimal technique in boxing out.
He wasn't the only one. Fletcher, Pippen, and Lloyd multiple times just lost track of their man when UK threw up an outside shot, allowing aggressive rebounders like Richardson and Montgomery to get putbacks or rebounds. Just poor technique. It certainly wasn't just their size. So many times after a missed UK shot, their guys were closer to the basket than ours - blocking us out.
No excuses to lose but I felt like there were a lot of homer calls in favor of Kentucky. Free throws were 14-1 or something like that at halftime. I know they were more aggressive and physical but some of the stuff was super tacky.
Buffalo beats WV in OT...
I'm impressed. This game was there for the taking, and I thought the thrashing UK took at the hands of Duke would've made this game even more difficult. Defense was really good. Rebounding was terrible; not due to lack of effort, as our guys tried and fouled due to being consistently out of position/not blocking out. Offense was mostly poised and the ball moved fairly well. Not worried with it as I attribute the struggles to Kentucky's unusual length, which we won't see again unless we have the type of season that'll make us all very happy. Also, Rupp is a pretty tough environment to open a season in.
Game momentum turned on a dime when Cook (can't knock his effort at all) didn't complete the and-1, SIU couldn't set its defense, and UK drilled two straight from distance. Thought Barry coached a pretty good game, although his decision to put Fletch back in with 4 fouls and over 11 minutes to play was a bit reactionary and unnecessary.
Summary; if we continue to play like that, we're going to have a very nice season.
--Insert something witty here--
Monday will tell a lot about this squad.
btw, I like the new threads.
Not sure if it was UK's under achieving or SIU's strength or a combination of both, but we played like we belonged in this game. We looked confident and were able to run our offense without too much of an interruption. We played decent D. I agree rebounding could use a lot more effort. We didn't shoot extremely well, I would like to see this being an average shooting night for the Dawgs.
GO DAWGS
Calipari: "Missed some threes today that could easily have beat us, but hard second game. I’m still mad we scheduled it."
Great game last night it was fun to watch, we look good. Could have won that game if we rebounded and didn’t make some key mistakes on offense. Also seemed like we were playing against the officials. We need to win Monday! Buffalo is a good team but we’re at home and hopefully we get a good crowd.
