Kentucky 58, UNC 77
After getting
embarrassed by VMI, Kentucky should have been highly motivated to give Carolina a run for our money, but that didn't happen. In fact, we started the game by taking it to the Wildcats going on a 11-2 run. Our defensive intensity for the first 10 minutes was the best I've seen in a long time. We haven't played that hard in many games. Another thing that brought a smile to my face was all the extra passes our guys made. Last year we had a very impatient offense that would take the first shot available despite how well it was defended. This game, we made the extra pass to get our shooter just a little more time to get the shot off and it made a difference.
We forced a bunch of turnovers and if you look at the Four Factors from the game, you can see TO% was the only one that UNC had a big advantage:
It turns out that the game was way closer than it should have been. We only outscored Kentucky by 3 in the second half. While our Defense was very solid our Offense puttered for much of the game. I was a little shocked by the lack of fast break opportunities we had. It seemed like Kentucky had more breaks than we did! That should never happen especially against a supposedly much weaker opponent.
You can see from the game flow that we built a lead in the first half and maintained the same margin for most of the second half:
There were some bright spots. Game ball goes to Deon Thompson who KICKED ASS! I wasn't a huge Deon fan last year, but boy he is playing tremendously well so far this season. He had 14 pts and 6 rebounds by half and finished with 20 and 9. Nice job!
Ty Lawson was driving to the hoop a lot more and while he got stuffed a few times, I think it does nothing but positive things when he is slashing around on the offensive side. He finished with 11 points, 9 assists and only 2 turnovers.
Wayne Ellington continues to struggle a bit from the floor. He went 5-14 from the field (but 3-4 from behind the arc).
Ed Davis was one point shy of getting his second double double in two games! He had 9 points and 10 rebounds. That guy is all over the floor when it comes to getting rebounds. You hear sometimes that a player has a knack for getting to the ball. That is Ed in spades.
No doubt the biggest concern of the game wasn't our inconsistency on the offensive end but the status of Tyler Zeller!! Zeller matched up against UK big man Patrick Patterson and didn't have quite the offensive night as he did against Penn. To make things worse he was on a break and about to slam the ball when he was fouled hard and went crashing to the floor. It looks like he may have hurt his left wrist pretty bad. It looked like he knew something was wrong with it as soon as he got up (he looked pissed). There is a decent chance there is some kind of fracture. If that is the case, he could be out several weeks. Fingers crossed that isn't the case!
The good news is our defensive intensity was great tonight (at least for the first half). The better news is that rumor has it Tyler Hansbrough will be back for the Maui Classic coming up.
The bad news is we didn't push the ball all that well and our offense sputtered at times again (like vs Penn). The worst news would be if Tyler Zeller is injured in a significant way.
