South Carolina came out with a quick 4 points on the Cats today, before Kentucky’s game was sparked by an Anthony Davis block. For the first time though, it didn’t take UK until the second half to arrive at the game.
Terrence Jones scored 4 of Kentucky’s first 5 points and finished the half with 8, doing so with the kind of authority Cal has been looking for. The Cats did a good job of driving to the basket and not settling for early jumpers (I’m talking about you, Marquis Teague). Doron Lamb drew his second foul with only 8 minutes gone in the first half, which left Miller and Teague sharing the back court. Lamb finished the half with 7 points.
As has been the case throughout the season, Kidd-Gilchrist and Davis did the work on the glass and on D for Kentucky and kept them in the game. Kidd-Gilchrist had 3 boards and Davis had 5 to go along with 8 points and 3 blocks. Davis finished the half only needing 3 blocks to break Sam Bowie’s freshman season block record of 73.
Teague really looked good with the ball in his hands today, with some crisp no look passes and nice drives to the hole that were reminiscent of John Wall. Teague had 6 points and 2 nice assists to go with 0 turnovers and 0 needless three pointers jacked up (hurray!).
Kentucky got beat on the glass, 19-14 (10-1 offensive…very offensive). South Carolina went cold, going 5-12 after their hot start and struggled to score throughout the first half. Their leading scorer this season, Malik Cooke, only finished with 4 points and Wayne Ellington had none.
Kentucky really took over in the last 8 minutes of the half and finished with a 16 point lead (34-18) on 56% shooting , holding South Carolina to 25%. For the first time in quite a while, UK looked like one of the nation’s top teams well before crunch time.
