Loge Level

Sunday’s roundhouse knockout of the Florida Gators would make ultimate underdog Daniel LaRussa proud.

The win may very well clinch an NCAA Tournament berth for the PersistiCats, who were written off each week since December as injuries and losses mounted. One more win in the Southeastern Conference Tournament on Friday would make it a lock. But if Sunday’s loss put the Gators in their body bag, then the win will be all the more sweeter.

So and ode to the Cats, especially our underdog comeback Cats (seniors Ramel Bradley and Joe Crawford) who never gave up:

Try to be best
‘Cause you’re only a man
And a man’s gotta learn to take it

Try to believe
Though the going gets rough
That you gotta hang tough to make it

History repeats itself
Try and you’ll succeed

Never doubt that you’re the one
And you can have your dreams!

You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you dow-ow-ow-ow-own

Fight ‘til the end
Cause your life will depend
On the strength that you have inside you

Ah you gotta be proud
starin’ out in the cloud
When the odds in the game defy you

Try your best to win them all
and one day time will tell
when you’re the one that’s standing there
you’ll reach the final bell!

You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you dow-ow-ow-ho-how-ho-own

You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you dow-ow-ow-ow-own

Fight ‘til you drop
never stop
can’t give up
Til you reach the top (FIGHT!)
you’re the best in town (FIGHT!)
Listen to that sound
A little bit of all you got
Can never bring you down

You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!

Sunday is Judgment Day. If the University of Kentucky loses on Senior Day at Rupp Arena, being swept by the Florida Gators, the Wildcats can kiss an NCAA at-large berth good-bye.

Maybe, if they somehow slipped to the third seed and ended up with three wins in the Southeastern Conference Tournament before losing the title game, they might undo a loss on Sunday. But that road would go through Alabama/Auburn, Arkansas and likely Tennessee (but maybe LSU/Ole Miss or South Carolina). They’ve played Tennessee well, but I like their odds of advancing that far better if they rest on Thursday, play Ole Miss/LSU or Georgia on Friday and either Mississippi State, Florida or Auburn/Alabama on Saturday.

But that scenario hinges on a win Sunday. Still, unlike others, I don’t think a win Sunday guarantees a bid. It would vault the Cats ahead of Florida and into the NCAA Tournament for the time-being. But they still need at least one more win in the SEC Tournament to lock down that bid, which would make a run to the SEC title game unnecessary. (more…)

The last six at-large bids in Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology at ESPN.com:

-UAB (19-8, 0-1 top 50, 4-3 top 100, 7-3 last 10, 68th RPI, 130th Strength of schedule) 

-Arizona State  (17-9, 4-5 top 50, 6-7 top 100, 3-7 L10, 70th RPI, 79th SOS)

-Davidson (20-6, 0-3 vs Top 50, 0-5 vs top 100, 10-0 L10, 61st in RPI, 158th SOS)

-Florida (20-7, 1-4 top 50, 3-6 top 100, 5-5 L10, 60th RPI, 115th SOS)

-New Mexico (22-6, 0-3 top 50, 5-4 top 100, 8-2 L10, 44th RPI, 149th SOS).

-Ohio State (17-10, 1-8 top 50, 3-8 top 100, 5-5 L10, 54th RPI, 40th SOS)

So, how do the Cats stack up?

-Kentucky (15-10, 3-5 top 50, 3-8 top 100, 8-2 L10, 65th RPI, 19th SOS)

I don’t think they should be in ahead of any of those teams RIGHT NOW — UAB and Florida beat them, plus Ohio State beat Florida — and it looks like the UAB loss might end up being a bigger loss than San Diego or Gardner-Webb. (more…)

So much has happened since I last blogged about the Wildcats’ rise to legitimacy. I’ve been a little busy the last couple weeks, but it’s also been a very full news cycle in Cat Nation.

They finally lost — in grand fashion — to Vanderbilt. I refused to turn off the TV despite the embarrassment. I firmly believe it’s a character-building moment that will vault the Cats to loftier heights.

The legendary Dick “Hoops” Weiss first compared Cats coach Billy Gillispie to Norman Dale of Hoosiers fame while questioning if Billy G is the right fit or if he’ll even stay. To think Gillispie didn’t know what he was getting into is short-sighted. And to claim UK fans are too demanding is once again an easy call from hundreds of miles away in New York. (more…)

What sticks out most during UK’s five-game winning streak is that they’re winning games they have no business winning.

A couple months ago, we were blaming a number of things for these Cats’ failures. They lost to Gardner-Webb, UAB, Houston and San Diego. There were plenty of excuses being made for losses that could not be excused.

In no particular order: Tubby’s recruiting, injuries, Tubby’s departure, Billy Gillispie’s lineup and playing time decisions, lack of chemistry between the new coach and the old players, etc. Did I mention Tubby’s recruiting?

Now, you won’t find any excuses being made. Jodie Meeks hasn’t played in three games — hasn’t mattered. Ramel Bradley gets the flu, then a concussion, and misses most of two games — doesn’t matter. Derrick Jasper still can’t run or jump like this — doesn’t matter. Joe Crawford’s feet feel like knives are shredding his arches with every step — doesn’t matter. Ramon Harris slams to the floor with a hip pointer — doesn’t matter. Michael Porter plays a lot — doesn’t matter.

There has been some good luck, although the scales have not been balanced. Richard Hendrix, a beast and one of the best players in a depleted SEC, must have received a virus-o-gram from Bradley and couldn’t play on Saturday. Auburn has no fans (read near bottom) and even fewer players who can accurately shoot the leather. Georgia’s defense was only topped in ineptitude by Auburn.

Still, without Bradley and Meeks – and with a hobbled Crawford only able to play in short spurts because of cramps and a foot condition that makes every step burn — the Cats had no business winning on the road at Georgia or Auburn.

But the Cats are finding ways to win close games. (Aren’t they all close?) And a lot of the credit goes to players emerging. Perry Stevenson has been a force. Patrick Patterson has been dominant. Bradley and Crawford are shooting the ball as fine as I can remember any Wildcat the last five, maybe 10, seasons. When Joe shoots, it seems automatic.

You expect good things to happen, don’t fear for the worst, and there are no longer any excuses.

The two SEC games they lost — at Mississippi State (Vanardo’s a hacker) and at Florida (let’s hope UK benefits the same way with borderline calls when the Gators visit Rupp) — the excuses were at least tempered.

But, most importantly, the message has been sent that there will no longer be inexcusable losses.

Kentucky Wildcats fans have plenty to be encouraged about, and I’ll be the first to admit that I was among the first to proudly proclaim the Cats had turned the corner. And they have.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves — the corner they turned was a meager hurdle in the lanscape of expectations that generally accompany this storied program. The Cats are still only 8-9, 2-2 in the Southeastern Conference. Yes, Tuesday was the first time they’ve had 100 percent of their roster at Coach Billy Gillispie’s disposal, and I can see them rattling off eight or nine wins in their final 12 SEC contests.

But the Cats still have one more roadblock to overcome before we seriously start crowning them SEC contenders and on the NCAA bubble. UK has not won a road game this season. They’ve come close against very competitive teams their last two times away against Mississippi State and Florida, so they’re on the brink of turning that corner, too.

But the Cats are far from being seriously considered for the NCAA bubble. Sure, the NCAA selection committee may give the Cats some sympathy given they played their first 16 games with some combination of a diminished roster. If they’re playing like a 20-8 team down the stretch and are 10-3 with a healthy roster they may get a bid after a couple wins in the SEC Tournament and an 18-14 or a 19-13 record. But even then, their RPI (144th) is going to spell R.I.P.

And until they beat a Georgia, a Vandy, a Tennessee or a South Carolina on the road then that scenario is not a realistic expectation.

And there’s not a home game that should be considered a given with this team. A loss to LSU, Alabama or USC would be a huge disappointment at this stage but not a shock. The Cats have to fight for every point, every rebound and every win.

Even if we assume the Cats win the home games they are supposed to (USC and Alabama), win the road games they are supposed to (Auburn and LSU), lose to Tennessee and Vandy on the road, split their tough home games (Georgia, Arkansas, Ole Miss and Florida) and split the rest of their road games (Georgia and USC), it will have been a great salvage of the season. Their final regular season record would be 15-14 and their conference record would be 9-7.

So, winning on the road will become of utmost importance, especially stealing games at Vandy, Georgia and USC plus getting revenge against Florida in Rupp on Senior Day, which would catch the nation’s attention on the last day of the regular season.

Optimistically, yes, we could be looking at a 17-12 record heading to CATlanta. And an internal optimist might even predict an 18- or 19-win regular season. But, let’s see the Cats win on the road before we expect this .500 team to finish any better than 9-7 in the SEC, which would be a great accomplishment.

Then, let’s win the SEC Tourney and erase all doubt!

The lyrics don’t ring literal, but they are, nevertheless, appropriate in the wake of the University of Kentucky’s phenomenal upset of No. 3 Tennessee on Tuesday night:

How do you like me now,
Now that I’m on my way?
Do you still think I’m crazy
Standin here today?
I couldnt make you love me
But I always dreamed about living in your radio
How do you like me now?

It’s been years since country music grasped my attention, and Toby Keith makes my blood boil, but that refrain rang in my head around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

All the naysayers expected the Cats to self-destruct by now. UK’s fans, administration and boosters were “insane” for at worst running former coach Tubby Smith off, or at the least allowing him to flee for Minnesota.

Well, how do you like us, now? Minnesota media? National media? Local media? Dick Vitale? Tubby Smith? Billy Gillispie bashers?

I love it, and I realize this very limited squad is still only 8-9 and not making the NCAA Tournament unless it does one of two things: 1.) Win about 10 of their next 12 regular games, or 2.) Win the Southeastern Conference Tournament title.

And let me be the first to say that Alternative No. 1 has no chance of happening, but No. 2 is very realistic. I’m optimistic enough to think that if UK can beat the hands-down top team in the league (Tennessee) then the Cats can beat any team in the league. But they still haven’t won a road game. So, to expect more than just a couple of their SEC road games (LSU, South Carolina, Auburn?) to go their way would be overly optimistic.

But on a neutral court — if you call 25,000 rabid UK fans in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome a neutral court — I think UK is as good as any team in the conference, and I like their odds of playing on Selection Sunday.

For that matter, if UK had played either of their two SEC losses at home, or even CATlanta, they would have won those two nailbiters. Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado — who played an incredibly dominant game — would have been called for at least a couple of contact fouls on any of his 10 blocked shots at The Hump. And at least a few of the borderline charge/blocking calls that went against the Cats in Gainesville might have gone the other way at Rupp Arena.

Point is, this team was never as bad as the haters hoped. They were playing with half a deck — no Jodie Meeks, no Derrick Jasper, a limited Joe Crawford, a battered Patrick Patterson, a disinterested Alex Legion — and learning a new system.

Now, they’ve turned the corner and are calling themselves a family. And Gillispie has done what Tubby Smith couldn’t with twice the talent the last two years: beat a top 10 team, coach a team who makes free throws consistently and infuse life into a fan base on the brink.

And Tubby Smith has lost two in a row — well on his way to four losses in five games, and maybe five in a row if Michigan can man up – while playing to the level of his competition and still hasn’t defeated a team of note.

Even Patrick Reusse has opened his eyes.

The Cats are re-writing a lot of uninformed columns from a few weeks ago, so why not re-write the song with more fitting lyrics:

 

How do you like us now?
How do you like us now,
Now that the Cats are on their way?
Do you still think we’re crazy
Standin here today?
I couldnt make you love Billy
But I always dreamed about ripping up your column
How do you like me now? 

When the Cats played Tennessee
I heard you lost all sanity
Never imagined they’d make it this far
Then Tubby lost two in a row
Aint it a cruel and funny show?
He took our dreams and tore them apart.

He’s on the phone
And we’re on our own
No Final Four in 10 years
Mitch’s phone starts ringin
Who could that be singin
It’s Billy G, with our wake up call!

How do you like us now?
How do you like us now,
Now that we’re on our way?
Do you still think we’re crazy
Standin here today?
I couldn’t make you love Billy
But I always dreamed about ripping up your column
How do you like us now?

Tell us baby …
We will play on …

Saturday’s double-overtime victory against No. 13 Vanderbilt was more than just Kentucky’s first meaningful win of the Billy Gillispie era. It was more than just a win over a ranked opponent.

Hopefully it turns out to be more than just one of a handful of wins for the Wildcats this season. More than a few have already speculated that maybe this will be the turning point for this so-far disappointing UK team.

And that’s what I choose to believe. We’ve been waiting for a seminal moment. There’s bound to be one, eventually, and why not Saturday?

There’s the fact that it’s the best the Cats have played all season and for long stretches, even despite some of the same bone-headed miscues. They threw away a 16-point lead in regulation — one that was four points with less than a minute — and were burned in the final 20 seconds in both regulation and the first overtime.

They lost Derrick Jasper — again — but still overcame adversity. The defense — even in spite of some terrible breakdowns on backdoor cuts and Shan Foster’s unconcious shooting — was at its best this season.

Joe Crawford, a player I’d almost written off because of his apparent unwillingness to give 100 percent on defense, was terrific. I’d nearly filed him in my least favorite Cats category along with Rodrick Rhodes, Antoine Walker, Antwain Barbour and Marvin Stone. But he played inspired and unselfishly on Saturday. Even though Foster made shot after shot in Crawford’s face, Joe was all up on Foster on nearly every shot. It wasn’t for lack of effort and wasn’t for lack of execution. Foster’s jsut a really good player who made really tough shots.

More than anything, this feels like a signature win because of the effort the Cats gave and the intensity with which they played — an intensity that seemed to both fuel the crowd and feed UK’s performance.

I spent five years in Lexington and attended about 80 percent of the home games and virtually all the major games from the fall of 1998 through the spring of 2003. I can remember four games that elicited the kind of emotion on display Saturday: 1998 vs. Maryland, Traitor Rick’s return to Rupp and two Florida games.

So, for all the criticism UK fans have received all season for not accepting mediocrity (or worse), they’ve still packed a 24,000-seat arena and still cheered the Cats when given something to cheer about. I saw 20,000+ show up for a game against an also-ran (Florida International) on New Year’s Eve when the best football team in the school’s last 30 years was playing a bowl game on the same day. Florida would be lucky to get 7,000 under similar circumstances.

UK basketball is still alive and kicking. And hopefully Saturday will be a defining moment in turning the tide toward reclaiming its rightful place in college basketball.

Yet another columnist from the Land of Lakes piles on us and our “mentally unbalanced basketball universe.”

Good for Tubby Smith and the Gophers. He has them eating from his palm. There was a time when he had the Kentucky media and fans in a similar trance — it was 1998 and 1999, and even to a lesser extent in 2003 and 2004.

Things are going wonderfully for the former UK coach at Minnesota. They’ve won 11 games after a win Wednesday against Northwestern, and they only won nine games all last season.

Then again, check Minnesota’s schedule and you’ll see the Gophers have wins against only three winning clubs, and that includes Santa Clara (8-7) and North Dakota State (8-7). And the signature wins for Iowa State (10-5), whom Minnesota beat 68-58, were against Purdue (10-5), Iowa (7-9) and Oregon State (6-8).

And while Tubby may not have lost to San Diego, Gardner-Webb or UAB, it’s not fair to compare his 10-3 record to Billy Gillispie’s 6-7 without comparing his signature losses — Florida State, Michigan State and UNLV – to that of North Carolina, Indiana and Louisville. Because when either team has played a legit opponent they haven’t faired well.

Sure, Gillispie’s Cats have stumbled against far inferior teams – while Tubby has padded his media butt-kissing caravan at the expense of the Dakotas, Nicholls State and Kennesaw State — but Gillispie might be sitting at 10-3 had he been given a few more teams like Central Arkansas, Florida International and Liberty instead of UAB, Houston and San Diego (admittedly, there was no excuse for Gardner-Webb).

But I’m not even trying to argue that UK is as good as Minnesota. Far from it. Minnesota would handle UK, but then again that’s because Tubby left a brutal schedule and little talent for Gillispie to work with. The point is this: Tubby has Minnesota moving in the right direction, but he won’t get the Gophers to the NCAA Tournament, yet he’s being canonized in the Twin Cities.

Let’s see how much praise Tubby gets when things get competitive, and allow me to wish the Minnesota media and Gopher fans good luck as they embark on a potential five-game losing streak beginning Jan. 17 — a stretch that includes Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin. But by then Jim Souhan and Patrick Reusse will have ignored the Gophers because they will have no longer mattered and the feel-good story will have subsided.

And five years from now when Tubby is registering his glorious 20-win seasons — which in this age isn’t always enough to get a team in the NCAA tournament, especially at a place like Minnesota, and can be considered nothing more than above average – with no conference titles and no Final Fours they’ll have better things to write about in the Twin Cities than correcting themselves and apologizing to a Final Four coach like Billy Gillispie and his mentally-disabled universe. (Think: Adrian Peterson, Justin Morneau, Al Harrington)

That’s right. Kentucky is actually part of the basketball universe, and if we have to go through hell to get back on top of that universe, then so be it.

Minnesota is in a nether-region, just satisfying a college basketball curiosity for the time being because the NFL’s Vikings failed to make the playoffs and because the NBA’s Timberwolves are utterly inept and depressing. And that’s exactly where Tubby belongs — where he can be loved and adored, maybe even fly under the radar — instead of being critiqued by the media and fans for his comparative above-average mediocrity.

There was a time when our Bluegrass basketball armageddon was bigger and better than ESPN’s orgasm (a.k.a Duke vs. North Carolina). It was the 1980s, when UK vs. Louisville was known as the Dream Game.

Separated by only an hour’s drive but decades of not meeting on the court, it was a hostile rivalry that featured two of the top programs in the nation with two legendary coaches — Denny Crum and Joe Hall. The players were just as phenomenal — Rex Chapman, Pervis Ellison, Felton Spencer, Kenny Walker, etc.

But some time in the early 1990s the Wildcats began dominating the rivalry thanks to Rick Pitino, and Duke emerged as a top program. It also coincided with ESPN’s exclusive broadcasting rights to the Duke-UNC series, and the Worldwide Leader’s propoganda machine somehow convinced us the Tobacco Road rivalry was the greatest the sport had ever known (all the while ignoring the fact the series didn’t become interesting until ESPN became relevant).

But even the most ardent Cat or Card fan must admit the Dream Game has lost a bit of its luster. But I wanted to highlight this entry with some of my fondest memories of the Dream Game, with an assist from YouTube.

I’ll start with “King” Rex, the boy wonder. And no better way to start than a montage from the 85-51 beatdown in 1986. Rex had 26 points, four assists and one sick dunk. This steal and dunk highlighted UK’s 76-75 victory at Rupp Arena in 1987, which ended with a last-second tip-in by Cedric Jenkins.

Another rout, in 1996, was highlighted by another posterization by Derek Anderson. That was the last win in an era in which UK won six of seven from the Cards.

More recently, Patrick Sparks made me smile in 2004. That prevented a three-year losing streak to the Cards and began UK’s current reign that was extended to three in a row by Derrick Jasper and the Cats last year.

If that doesn’t get you excited for Saturday, then I don’t know what will.

In anticipation of seeing Patrick Patterson play for the first time in almost nine months on New Year’s Eve (I’ll be covering the game for The Cats’ Pause because Matt May is in Nashville for the Music City Bowl), I thought I’d reflect on my personal impressions of how well the freshman forward has played.

How far has Patrick Patterson come? Well, I definitely had no idea who the 6-foot-4 freshman was four years ago, and I was living in the same town and it was my job to know he was.

So, you can imagine where that put him on the national recruiting radar. So, at the end of his freshman year — when he had grown to 6-6 and earned third team all-state honors in West Virginia for Huntington High — I made some calls to see if his impressive freshman season had registered at all nationally.

Brett Dawson, the University of Kentucky beat reporter for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, who at the time was covering Illinois for the Champaign newspaper, was my first call because Patterson had expressed interest in both Illinois and Michigan State.

Dawson, a good friend and mentor while he was working for The Cats’ Pause and I was a student at UK, had never heard of Patterson, and Patterson hadn’t been noticed by either of the coaching staffs at the two Big Ten schools. And Patterson wasn’t on UK coach Tubby Smith’s radar either, according to TCP’s Matt May, another close friend from my days in LexVegas.

Now, Patterson is the toast of the town. He’s easily been Billy Gillispie’s best player so far this season and the centerpiece of Gillispie’s rebuilding effort.

Patterson’s probably been one of the nation’s 10 best freshmen in a loaded class that includes former Huntington High School teammate O.J. Mayo, Indiana’s Eric Gordon, Memphis’ Derrick Rose, Kansas State’s Michael Beasley, UCLA’s Kevin Love and Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless.

UK fans have been so impressed that they’re afraid he might not stay around long enough for the Wildcats to complete the turnaround with him on campus.

Even I, whom got to see him before the rest of Cat Nation and was impressed enough to figure he’d soon be a top 100 recruit, am surprised with how good he’s immediately become at the collegiate level. Patterson made huge leaps forward each high school season, none bigger than from his freshman to sophomore season when it became obvious he was getting overlooked. But soon UK, Wake Forest and Florida came calling. A year later, everyone would be knocking on his door, including Duke and North Carolina.

It was when Patterson became a recruiting star that I began to have my doubts. I knew he could play, but now he had become more sought after than any high school senior. Sure, he’d be an impact player but not a star (or at least not for three or four seasons). Right?

People asked who he reminded me of, often asking if former UK forward Chuck Hayes was an accurate comparison. Sure, but he’s more athletic and taller than Hayes with a higher ceiling. More like Charles Hurt, I figured. Little did I know Hayes would be an NBA starter.

In fact, Emeka Okafor was who came immediately to mind. Afterall, Okafor was a late-bloomer like Pat, and arrived at UConn as a dominant defender and rebounder with a limited offensive game.

So, that’s how I imagined his freshman season progressing. So, the fact that his defense has been the weakest part of his game is a huge surprise, even if it’s been very good.

But Pat’s offensive game grew by leaps and bounds over the last 18 months. I remember when he was too timid to dunk, then when his offensive game consisted of a 10-foot radius from the basket. But he’s developed a 15-foot jumper, post moves, and I even saw him take a defender off the dribble from the top of the key at least once.

UK might still be 4-5 without him, but who knows. He’s come a long way.