Kentucky 106 Florida 100

[16thBBall Fan]

Final. A great start for the Cats to start SEC play. A fun game to watch! Next up at Georgia on Tuesday night at 7:00pm. The game will be on the SEC Network. The Cats are now 3-0 vs. top 10 ranked teams this season!

[DragonFire]

As a Kentucky fan and a known Florida hater, you know my line - my two favorite teams just won.  Kentucky, and the team playing Florida.

[theguru]

That is a lot of points.

Cats! Cats! Cats!

[Jumper_Dad]

That start had me worried, our offense looked pitiful the first five minutes, but no one noticed because the defense was so bad. 😃

The defense adjusted and UK offense actually started running sets and getting some shots. That flipped the game for UK.

This Florida team is pretty dang good and I'm glad we don't have to go down there. I'll call my shot now, no way we aren't on the same side of the SEC Tourney bracket. 

Good Game, Go Cats!!!

[futurecoach]

I love it! Great win! Definitely a fun game to watch, and I love how they battled. This team is fun to watch offensively, and seems to really be a close team. The defense is still a concern, as if they are getting a steal they usually aren’t getting a stop it seems like. If the offense has an off game like they did against Clemson and OSU then it’s usually not going to end well until they get the defense figured out. With that said you have to love where they are right now. 3 top ten wins this year, and still room to improve! 

[Carl Spackler]

57.8% from the field, and 25 assists on 37 made basketballs.  That was against the team that had been statistically the #1 defense in the country for the last month.  Very impressive. 

[Breds82]

It’s such a breath of fresh air to have Mark Pope as the coach. I don’t like the slow starts but the cats are 3-0 vs top 10 teams and 1-0 in conference play. Then you flip over and watch a couple of minutes of the Tennessee game and just sigh with relief. Arkansas coach still doing the same thing he’s done the last 7 years. I’ll take rock fights when we score in the 90s-100s and win.

[16thBBall Fan]

Tremendously fun game to watch, great win

Got to rebound better on the defensive glass than what we did today, way too many missed box outs, if we do just a decent job defensive rebounding we win between 15-20

LOVE MY CATS!!

[DragonFire]

I definitely will take what we're getting, but I do think the defense has to come along sometime.  Maybe not this year, but sometime.  Seeing a modern offense is a real breath of fresh air, so I'm super happy.  But shooting will sometimes fail you, defense usually doesn't.  Gotta find some way to slow teams down to win a title IMO.

[futurecoach]

23 minutes ago, DragonFire said:

I definitely will take what we're getting, but I do think the defense has to come along sometime.  Maybe not this year, but sometime.  Seeing a modern offense is a real breath of fresh air, so I'm super happy.  But shooting will sometimes fail you, defense usually doesn't.  Gotta find some way to slow teams down to win a title IMO.

This! Everything about this season has been great to see except the defense. Which is surprising considering the defensive players of the year he brought in. So you know they have guys that know how to play defense, so is it scheme or what for why the defense has been so bad? If they can get that figured out, this can be a team that truly does something in the tournament. 

[Voice of Reason]

7 minutes ago, futurecoach said:

This! Everything about this season has been great to see except the defense. Which is surprising considering the defensive players of the year he brought in. So you know they have guys that know how to play defense, so is it scheme or what for why the defense has been so bad? If they can get that figured out, this can be a team that truly does something in the tournament. 

It is all about defending the pick and roll. At times they defend it as well as you can. Then at other times it is a layup or an open shot. They need to get more consistent at defending the pick and roll.

They also need to get better at boxing out. My guess is 10 of Florida's 15 offensive rebounds happened because UK did not work harder and box out.

[Voice of Reason]

Only player on UK with more than 4 rebounds was Williams with 8.

[nikeman49]

Defense will get there, great Ky basketball!!

[bugatti]

On 1/4/2025 at 4:32 PM, DragonFire said:

I definitely will take what we're getting, but I do think the defense has to come along sometime.  Maybe not this year, but sometime.  Seeing a modern offense is a real breath of fresh air, so I'm super happy.  But shooting will sometimes fail you, defense usually doesn't.  Gotta find some way to slow teams down to win a title IMO.

 

On 1/4/2025 at 4:58 PM, futurecoach said:

This! Everything about this season has been great to see except the defense. Which is surprising considering the defensive players of the year he brought in. So you know they have guys that know how to play defense, so is it scheme or what for why the defense has been so bad? If they can get that figured out, this can be a team that truly does something in the tournament. 

 

On 1/4/2025 at 4:24 PM, Breds82 said:

It’s such a breath of fresh air to have Mark Pope as the coach. I don’t like the slow starts but the cats are 3-0 vs top 10 teams and 1-0 in conference play. Then you flip over and watch a couple of minutes of the Tennessee game and just sigh with relief. Arkansas coach still doing the same thing he’s done the last 7 years. I’ll take rock fights when we score in the 90s-100s and win.

The irony of all this is that these are similar remarks that were said about UK last year. Many forget UK was one of the higher-scoring teams in the nation last season but could not stop a cardboard cutout of Jack Gohlke. If we are being 100, this year's UK squad has more experience across the board, but the only major difference is program energy (which is HUGE). To refresh everyone's memory, at this point last year UK had the same record, was the highest-scoring team in the nation, had a similar ranking, and people were optimistic.

Getting behind double-digits and the lack of defensive prowess is concerning from a long-term perspective. I love this team's bulldog backcourt.

[futurecoach]

3 hours ago, bugatti said:

 

 

The irony of all this is that these are similar remarks that were said about UK last year. Many forget UK was one of the higher-scoring teams in the nation last season but could not stop a cardboard cutout of Jack Gohlke. If we are being 100, this year's UK squad has more experience across the board, but the only major difference is program energy (which is HUGE). To refresh everyone's memory, at this point last year UK had the same record, was the highest-scoring team in the nation, had a similar ranking, and people were optimistic.

Getting behind double-digits and the lack of defensive prowess is concerning from a long-term perspective. I love this team's bulldog backcourt.

This! Which is why I in another thread I asked where was all the defensive complaints this year, like we saw last year. Since the defense even with a new coach, experienced players, etc is still very bad this year. There is still time to get to fixed, but it hasn’t been good this year at all.