This was senior Josh Harrellson’s party, but we’ll get to that in a minute. The Cats beat the Cards in the Chicken Bucket this afternoon, and it was a great game (not just because UK won). During the first half, I started getting a little frustrated because it seemed like every time the Cards went in for a layup, it was uncontested (the Cats just stood back and let them go). Come to find out, UK was just trying not to foul (their bench is much thinner than Louisville’s). Evidently it worked, as the Cats had 2 less fouls overall than the Cards (15-17). And the free-throw shooting was much better by the Cats (14 of 16 vs. 5 of 11 by the Cards).
The big difference was the play of Josh Harrellson. It seemed like the Cards left him wide-open most of the game. I don’t know if they were trying to double-team Jones and Lamb or what, but they obviously didn’t have much respect for Josh. Most of Harrellson’s shots came from passes to him where he dunked from being wide open under the basket. Harrellson finished with a double-double (23 points, 14 rebounds).
Knight led the team well. He finished with 25 points, hitting 53.8% of his shots (66.7% from downtown). He still struggles with his assist-to-turnover ratio (4-to-5 today), but the Cards were very physical and Peyton Siva was all over him at the UK end of the court.
Liggins played great defense, he was also pivotal for the win even though he only scored 2 points. He had 4 steals and 2 blocks, but he shut down Peyton Siva at the Louisville end of the court (Siva averages 11.5 pts on 52.4% shooting – today he had 6 pts on 22.2% shooting). With defense like that, it’s easy to see Liggins’ role in the lineup.
Jones had 12 points on 5 of 11 shooting, Miller had 7 points on 3 of 5 shooting, and Lamb had 9 points on 3 of 6 shooting. One other thing I noticed was that UK did try to slow the game down. There were several times when the Cats had to throw up a last-second ball to beat the shot clock.
The Cats next game is against Pennsylvania (5-5) Monday, January 3rd back in Rupp.
