Jon Rothstein has made 5 observations about the Sweet 16 and one of those is he thinks Cincinnati has prepared the Kentucky Wildcats for their game with West Virginia.
3. Cincinnati will help prepare Kentucky for West Virginia
The Bearcats stood toe to toe with the mighty Wildcats last Saturday before running out of gas midway through the second half and that experience will help prepare John Calipari’s squad for its Sweet 16 matchup against West Virginia on Thursday. The Mountaineers are one of the more physical teams in all of college basketball, and just like Cincinnati, they’ll come at you with reckless abandon for 40 minutes. Mick Cronin worked for Bob Huggins before he became a head coach at Murray State and it’s no coincidence that each of their current programs plays every possession like it’s their last. The big difference between these two teams in terms of their matchups against Kentucky? West Virginia presses for 40 minutes while Cincinnati does not. Applying pressure against a team with supreme talent often provides more opportunities for the opponent to generate easy baskets and it will be interesting to see if Huggins opts to go in that direction against the Wildcats in Cleveland. The Mountaineers have gotten back to the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend by wearing teams out, but that’s not necessarily going to be the best way for them to have a chance to upset Kentucky. West Virginia has forced a combined 40 turnovers in its first two NCAA games.
Read “Observations: Howland hire makes Mississippi St. respectable off the bat” by clicking here.
I believe the game with Arkansas has prepared them more for this game than the Bearcats because the Razorbacks were dumb enough to try and press the deep Wildcats too.
Please Huggy, press Kentucky the whole game.
Please.
