The hype surrounding the start of the game was the single season shot block record that Anthony “Da Brow” Davis would spoon break. It wasn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when. A few other storylines emerged during UK’s battle with Arkansas….very few.
So, Arkansas is terrible at playing basketball. Mike “Nolan” Anderson thought he could come into Rupp and try and press the cats into forcing some turnovers. Yeah that didn’t work out so well. UK exploited the slow footed defenders and displayed a wide variety of alley oops to Davis and Jones. Due to this so called “full court press”, UK blew up and extended its lead all the way to 26 at one point. It seemed at times during the game that this UK team was finally coming together and “clicking”.
The biggest story of the game was of course Micheal Sanchez’s hair. I kid, although it is nice of him to donate his hair to a cancer patient. Anthony Davis was the the main event Tuesday night and much like Shawn Michaels in a ladder match, he did not disappoint.
Davis finished with 27 points on 10-11 shooting, 14 rebounds and 7 blocks. Had he gotten those last 3 blocks he would have all but sealed up the National POY race. Thomas Robinson, thanks for playing. Davis is a phenomenal talent and may be the smartest basketball player UK has had since Prince. Even when he doesn’t accumulate stats he impacts the game with his hustle and effort. Congrats to Davis, he truly deserves to be the guy who has UK’s all time single season shot block record.
Miller started out hot in the 1st half when UK seemed to be out of sorts. He was aggressive taking the ball to the rack and looked terrific. He finished with 11 points on 5-8 shooting. I would like to see the offense go through him more often. Miller needs to get 15 shots per game. When he plays well, UK cant be stopped.
I really like what I see from Jones lately. He has really focused on his defense and is playing incredibly hard. He had 5 blocks, 9 boards and 1 steal to go along with his 13 points. With MKG and Davis getting all the accolades, Jones may have the pressure off of him and he seems to play better in that setting.
Teague and Lamb played very well. Teague had only 7 points but dished 9 dimes with only 3 turnovers. It may have seemed that Lamb made 100 three pointers but he only had 2 threes and finished with 14 points as he broke out of his recent slump.
MKG had a quiet night with 10 points, 4 rebs and 4 assists. Kidd Gilly really excelled in the game breaking the press and ooping to bigs down low. Keep an eye on Sportscenter’s top 10, One of those has to be in there.
Arkansas’ Wade had a good night but only finished with 12 points, seemed like a lot more. Micheal Sanchez finished with 3 points and 0 rebounds. Maybe he should graduate early and get a job, basketball will not be his future skill.
Great game for the Cats as they dominated a shorter, less talented team as they should have. They covered the spread and sent the SEC and nation a message. WE ARE UK and WE ARE FOR REAL. Bring it Bama.
