The Kentucky Wildcats opened up their 2012 NCAA Tournament run tonight at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville (Ky), against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. This game marked UK’s 52[SUP]nd[/SUP] appearance in the tourney and their 106[SUP]th[/SUP] win. (Cal’s 500[SUP]th [/SUP]officially*) Kentucky entered the tournament as the #1 seed overall. [SIZE=1][I]*asterisk to denote BS nature of qualifier.[/I][/SIZE]
Starting five: Marquis Teague, Doron Lamb, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, and Anthony Davis.
The Wildcats opened up quickly with ten points off of good penetration by Jones and Teague (hehehe) and a couple of quick J’s by Doron Lamb. Anthony Davis had two blocks in the first three minutes to help keep WKU scoreless.
Following UK’s quick run to double digits, the Hilltoppers woke up and put seven points on the board in a hurry. A couple of minutes later, WKU hit a big three and took the lead.
UK responded with another six point flurry of their own to go back up. For the most part, the Cats seemed to be making the right decisions on offense up until this point.
That is until the next trip down, when Davis decided to start the errant three routine and jacked one up. An offensive rebound by Doron Lamb retained possession but, look back at what I just wrote. Is it me, or are the player’s rolls completely backwards on that possession? Eager to join in the party, Marquis Teague came right down on the next possession and pulled up from behind the arc before ten seconds had passed on the shot clock.
A couple of UK turnovers, combined with the shots mentioned above, allowed WKU to get within a bucket of the Cats. At this point Darius Miller turned up the pressure on defense and followed that up with a ‘statement’ three. 10-2 run, UK.
From here, Kentucky began to attack the basket again and stretched their lead back to double digits. The Hilltoppers would not go away though. Derrick Gordon, MKG’s team mate in high school, took it to the cup in transition. In a game of mini-runs and six points swings , WKU held their own (or at least made it seem like they were.)
Down the stretch of the half, Kentucky’s defense began to shut down anything the Hilltoppers would try inside of 18 feet. At the one minute mark, Terrence Jones put back a reverse dunk that sent tremors all of the way back to Lexington. Doron Lamb came down after this and dropped a quick three to keep the crowd of blue cheering. And as the last seconds of the half ran out, Anthony Davis blocked a shot to cap it all off, sending the Cats to the locker room with a 19 point lead.
According to the narration of the first half it seemed like a contest, and the game had that air, but the stats told a different story. Jones and Lamb were already in double figures, the Cats doubled up WKU in field goal percentage at 61%. They also took twice as many trips to the charity stripe, capitalizing 27% more. Kentucky was ‘running its stuff’ and executing pretty well.
In the second half, Kentucky’s defense just looked like a complex math equation which the Hilltoppers did not have the IQ to solve.
Terrence Jones continued to play Man-ball. Jones said earlier this week that winning in this tournament was his motivation for coming back, I believe it was to practice posterizing people for the NBA. I mean some parts of his game almost don’t even belong on an NCAA court. If he plays like he did today for the next six games, he could challenge Davis for tourney MVP and move up significantly in the NBA Draft.
On the second of two lobs to Anthony Davis, he caught a technical (for the second time this year) for hanging on the rim ‘unnecessarily’ when Davis was actually doing so to keep from hurting himself.
Kentucky was rolling, and everyone was taking it to the rim. Miller, Davis, Jones. Even Marquis Teague dunked and skipped back up the court like ‘yeah, I can do that’. They were up big when Kyle Wiltjer converted an and 1 of his own. Cal had sat Davis a couple of minutes before, but the clinic continued.
Drives by Gilchrist, whether resulting in buckets or a hard offensive foul, were haymakers from a champ to the temple of an overwhelmed challenger. All this, while the defending champs, UCONN, looked on from the stands. Yes friends, however fashionably late, Kentucky had arrived at the party.
With just under nine minutes to go, Anthony Davis recorded his seventh block to go along with twelve points and eight rebounds. This block set a UK Tournament record for blocks in a game, as well as officially starting the triple-double watch.
Kentucky demonstrated what will work for them in the tournament tonight. Feeding Jones and Davis down low, whether bounce pass or lob. MKG and Teague driving in transition and kicking it out to Lamb, Miller and Wiltjer (and only those three) for jumpers. This was mixed with a minimal amount of what will not work for them, namely early threes by people like Teague and Davis. As long as they keep a mix like this or better, no one else in the tourney has a match or answer.
Interesting enough though, is the fact that while Kentucky was up by nearly thirty points at seven minutes to go, Cal didn’t bring his bench in. Though it did seem as though he took his starters out as MKU cut the score to a 15 point deficit by the one minute mark.
Kentucky cruised, looking really good doing so, to the tune of 81-66. Terrence Jones was the MAN of the game with 22 points, and ten rebounds. He was joined by Doron Lamb, Anthony Davis, and Marquis Teague in double figures with, 16, 16 and 12, respectively.
Davis did not get the triple-double, but he did pour in nine rebounds, seven blocks, three assists and one steal to go along with his sixteen points. Really, what didn’t he do?
Kentucky takes on the winner of tonight’s tilt between Iowa St. and UCONN on Saturday evening. That should be a bit more of a contest.
