Final a nice road win for the Cats! Hey is this the same team that lost at home to Vandy without their best player for over 30 minutes of the game. Heck of a game today by Reeves and Toppin! The Cats lock up the #3 seed in the SEC tournament nest week.

Impressive win.  Especially with no Wallace. 

Just as we all predicted: UK would score their most points going back to their victory on December 21st against FAMU, without their two PGs.

That win was as fun as a regular season win can get. All the adversity with injuries and then foul trouble. Going that deep into the bench. SEC 3 seed on the line. Higher NCAA seed in jeopardy. Fantastic win. And all because they played some zone defense.

6 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

That win was as fun as a regular season win can get. All the adversity with injuries and then foul trouble. Going that deep into the bench. SEC 3 seed on the line. Higher NCAA seed in jeopardy. Fantastic win. And all because they played some zone defense.

UK went zone deep in both halves, but how they were packing the middle it served as a de facto zone for much of the game. Cal gambled Arkansas couldn’t beat them from the perimeter, and he was right.

Also great FT defense from the Cats as well.

The defensive game plan and execution was great. Basically making Toppin play PG was great. Awesome win on the road to close out the season. 

Calipari should get a lot of credit, besides just from Steve Lappas, for that one.

Great win! Great job too by Cal, as he out coached a guy some UK fans have said they wanted to replace him. To go on the road and win this game without a starting pg, then playing the last 5 minutes of the game without your top two centers is impressive. I love the adjustment of allowing Toppin to handle the ball a lot more today, and not make Theiro do it as often. Plus obviously using the 2/3 zone at the end of both halves. UK doesn’t play the 2/3 zone well, but it was needed today especially at the end. 
 

Just a great win on the road today. Now let’s get healthy and get ready for next week! 
 

Go Big Blue!

This was a nice Quad 1 win. Depending on what other teams did today, there are only about 10 teams with more Quad 1 wins than UK. Crazy to say that considering where they were a couple weeks ago. 

2 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

This was a nice Quad 1 win. Depending on what other teams did today, there are only about 10 teams with more Quad 1 wins than UK. Crazy to say that considering where they were a couple weeks ago. 

Agreed! UK may pick up another quad one win If Michigan finds a way to get a win at Indiana tomorrow. Michigan is currently 54th, if they get in the top 50 it becomes a quad one win for UK. 

If UK can get healthy. This is a team that definitely can make a deep run. At the same time this team is a team that can lose in the first round again. You just never know what team will show up. UK overall has been trending up though. So hopefully they are close to being able to put a consistent stretch of games together. Which is something we see happen every year. A team suddenly figuring it out come tournament time. Hopefully it is the Cats this year. 

13 minutes ago, futurecoach said:

If UK can get healthy. This is a team that definitely can make a deep run. At the same time this team is a team that can lose in the first round again. You just never know what team will show up. UK overall has been trending up though. So hopefully they are close to being able to put a consistent stretch of games together. Which is something we see happen every year. A team suddenly figuring it out come tournament time. Hopefully it is the Cats this year. 

Fingers crossed!

Man, isn’t it amazing what playing a little zone defense will do to the opposition, just what if this had been happening all season!!

I mean, it’s great UK played some zone (it was actually predominately drop coverage and packing the lane), but to find a way to manufacture 88 points with no PG and your PF being a primary ball handler is the real story of the game. Reeves was on one.

I am thinking a 6 seed is the best UK can get. They are at 20 in NCAA net rankings. The bad losses and lower number of Quad 1 games overall are going to work against them.

1 hour ago, Voice of Reason said:

I am thinking a 6 seed is the best UK can get. They are at 20 in NCAA net rankings. The bad losses and lower number of Quad 1 games overall are going to work against them.

Still an outside chance at a 5 seed if they make a run to the conference finals, and some other teams ranked around them get upset early in their tournaments.
 

Before the Vandy game, Lunardi had UK as the top ranked 6 seed. Plus with UK finishing third in a conference that looks to get probably 8 teams in the tournament. UKs resume is going to be an interesting one to compare to others.