Kentucky and Kansas square off tonight in the nightcap of the NCAA tournament second round. UK comes in as an 8 seed and Kansas State is the 9 seed in the Midwest Region. Kentucky is 8-0 all-time against Kansas State, with two postseason meetings, and comes in as a 4.5 point favorite tonight.
Kentucky is playing its best basketball of the season at the most important time of the year. The Wildcats drew the toughest bracket in the tournament with Wichita State, Louisville, Duke, and Michigan. Louisville nearly lost last night to Manhattan and Duke fell to Mercer earlier today.
Kentucky has to keep playing with the same intensity they played with in the SEC Tournament. If they can do that and minimize turnovers they can go along way. The one thing that has to happen for Kentucky is Julius Randle has to be more involved in the offense. Randle has been a beast on the boards, but continues to have problems scoring the basketball. He only score 4 points against Florida. Over the last three games Randle has averaged 11 points and 11.3 rebounds per game. Randle needs to average at least 15-16 points per game.
Alex Poythress is another player that needs to step up for Kentucky. I said it last week and the same goes for this week, Alex needs to stay out of foul trouble. If Alex can get in the flow of the game he can make some noise. Poythress has only scored 12 points the last three games and pulled down 10 rebounds, 7 of those rebounds came against Florida.
James Young and the Harrison twins need to continue to play and shoot the ball the way they did in the SEC Tournament. Young and the Twins were a combined 17-39 from three point range good for 44%.
Willie Cauley-Stein seems to have the right attitude to keep playing the way he has and by blocking shots, I think Kentucky will be in good shape. WCS has blocked 13 shots the past three games.
Prediction:
Prediction: Kansas State vs Kentucky Kansas State 62 Kentucky 75 Andrew Harrison MVP
— Chad Pugh (@ChadPugh_NOB) March 22, 2014
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