The 2010-2011 basketball season was a season that had some really high highs and some really low lows. Before March, some UK fans were only fixated on the bad and expectations for the postseason were collectively all over the board. This team showed that they had enough talent to win a national title, but some wouldn’t have been surprised if they had lost in the first round of the SEC tournament. These are the moments that caused such doubts:
[B]
Ouch, Maui butt hurts[/B] – Kentucky was on its way to a Maui championship and an undefeated season. The preseason favorites, Michigan State got beat early on and the Invitational was UK’s to lose. UK was supposed to walk in and blast the luck out of the huskies. They had played well prior to this game, but they hadn’t played a team like Kentucky, right? Kemba scored 29 and UK looked awful losing by 17 points.
[B]
UNC beats UK by 2 terrible and unearned points[/B] – UK marched into the usually empty Chapel Hill and was out to prove the Uconn loss was just a fluke. Doron Lamb went off for 24 points but Terrence Jones had his worst game as a cat going 3-17 from the field. Tyler Zeller and (goofy) company had 37 free throw attempts to UK’s 21. Near the end of the game Cal told the ref with only 4 players “my team is on the floor” then he looked down the bench and said “Oh, never mind. Polson, get in there”.
[B]
Cats open SEC play with a loss…to Georgia? [/B]- Ugh or should I say UGAh! The young cats looked frazzled playing at Georgia, the birthplace of basketball mediocrity. The upperclassmen scored only 17 of UK’s 70 points and it was a frustrating game to watch as a fan. The cats got down big early, fought back but buckled at the end. Georgia went on to have a Georgia-like season losing in the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] round of the SEC tourney and 1[SUP]st[/SUP] round of the NCAA’s.
[B]
YOU F****** SELFISH MOTHERF*****!!! [/B]- The Alabama game was a turning point in the season. All of the team’s frustrations came to a head in Tuscaloosa. Calipari told the entire nation how he felt about Terrence Jones via tight zoom from the ESPN cameras. Despite that and being down20 in the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] half, the cats rallied all the way back to be only down 1 with 8 seconds left. The rally apparently took too much out of the cats as they turned the ball over with a chance to win at the end.
[B]
The great white Mohawk deals Kentucky a loss[/B] – If Kentucky was going to be taken seriously as a national contender, they had to win a true road game, especially in a down SEC year. Kentucky would have won fairly easily if the referees hadn’t decided to give Rotnei Clarke 7 straight free throws. Those free throws and Rotneis’ hair proved to be too much to overcome as the Cats lost another nail biter at the last second.
[B]
Enes declared forever ineligible[/B] – Prior to SEC play, the NCAA and its gang of inconsistent cowards told Kentucky that they would in fact be Kanter-free. Kentucky all year long seemed like it was missing only one key ingredient. Whether or not Kanter was that missing piece, he could have only helped a thin roster even thinner front line. UK fans never expected Kanter to never play, so this dose of reality perhaps played a huge part in tempering expectations for the year.
[B][FONT="]
[SIZE=3]Uconn’t beat us [/SIZE][/FONT][/B][FONT="][SIZE=3]–[/SIZE] [/FONT]Shortly after Jim Calhoun won the “oldest living man award”, he celebrated by eating some peanut butter brittle and advancing to another Final Four. The opponent? The same team Uconn “whooped up on” in November, The Kentucky Basketball Wildcats. But UK had gotten better as the season progressed and this game was essentially for a national title. The game was unbearable to watch and Uconn sucked “less” in the end and deflated Kentucky’s national championship aspirations. The only bright side was UK lost to a team that was eventually crowned as the Nation’s best. But as a UK fan that’s a really sucky bright side.
