Cal's Cats: We beat little brother edition

UK improves to 15-0! The last time we started off 15-0 was 77/78 when UK won the title!

24,479 a new attendance record. It blows my mind on how we continue to sell out over and over and somehow keep breaking this record. I understand some upper arena tickets are bought and end up still in scalper’s hands at tip off and they only count people who come in. That is what that bar is you have to walk through that clicks when your ticket is taken. Also I guess they count media as attendance. Do they count players and managers in that?

If anyone knows that one let me know.
UK had tight security coming in. They screened every poster judging rather anything on it was inappropriate. I couldn’t hear any chants inappropriate other then the bull%%%% chant after refs made one of their million bad calls.

Before the game the teams had to cross courts to go to the locker rooms and there was some jawing and Harris tried to extend a hand out and they wouldn’t have any of it. Cal told them to not even attempt to extend hands at that point and just play ball. This seemed to set a precedent for what we saw soon as CBS picked up coverage at the beginning of the game.

Wow was that not some sloppy basketball…granted there were a ton of emotion out there and it makes sense for that to occur but wow. Right out of the gate with UofL talking trash at Bledsoe and we didn’t back down from that.

Did anyone see the hand shake between Cal and Pitino at the end? There was a lot of talk about how quick this hand shake would be. Cal tried to talk to him some after the game and Pitino just said good game shaked his hand and moved on, he would stop for a little friendly conversation. We clearly have the classier coach if you didn’t already know.

Some UK fans do not like to talk bad about Pitino because of what he did for UK but Pitino was never the classiest guy at UK but he is worse now than he was at UK.

I don’t know if it is all the money he received while at Boston, the fact he was unable to succeed in the NBA for the second time, he has mentioned on several occasions he left the best thing he ever had when he left UK…so maybe the frustration with this, I don’t know.

The refs were bad and its less bias when you win and you still say that. One the big question is should have Cousins been ejected??? Technically…yes.

The rule is pretty black and white, you throw an elbow you are gone. I’m hearing many argue “If Wall wanted to hit him it would have been much harder than that.” Those saying this is thinking of the old rule of getting ejected for throwing punches, this new rule is not about that, they are trying to set a precedent that elbows are dangerous and they are going to kick you out if you use them.

For those old school guys out there…I know elbows are basketball…but that is the new rule that is supposed to be inforced. The problem is all year I have watched UK games and non UK games and I see the elbows being thrown out there and most of the time it is just called a personal foul, I have seen a few technical’s called but not once has someone been thrown out for that.

So technically he should be ejected but it doesn’t seem the refs believe in that rule either despite being told to call it. My guess is if that was in the second half he would have been gone, it’s hard to make that call right out of the gate. It does give Louisville fans something to complain about, you can expect this to be the number one excuse from Louisville fans.

I was kind of surprised Cousins did end up getting into it today because I knew he would be matched up with Samuels and Cousins recently mentioned he is friends with Samuels from high school, so I didn’t see him getting into it with him. Cousins did play well with 18 points and holding Samuels to nine points.

So what was my beef with the refs? For one over and over Louisville bigs pushed us in the back on rebounds and I counted this foul being called once. They fouled a lot and many fouls on them were called but they got in every cheap shot they could.

There was a bunch of calls I was just blown away by but one that sticks out to me was John Wall getting a technically foul for “smack talking” along with Smith. The problem was they were zooming in on Wall during this and Smith is just jawing at him over and over and Wall will not look at him and doesn’t even open his mouth and they call a double technical on that.

That is a tale tale sign of refs trying to get a hold of the game but doesn’t have the guts to make a game changing call by calling just a technical on Smith. During games I’m yelling in my mind at refs for calls but in the back of mind I know basketball is so fast and I couldn’t call it any better and that’s why calls like that frustrate me more than bang bang plays.

Kyle Macy agreed with me on this, he said this ref and mentioned his name Doug something …this ref apparently loves the double technical and Macy believes if you go back and look he is likely to have more double technicals then any other refs. Macy called it a copout call.

UK does need to send Smith a thank you card for this. This got Wall going and at that point for the rest of the game he woke up and took over. Wall finished with 17.

Wall cramped up some but seemed to be fine, similar to the North Carolina game but never went back to the locker room. Surprisingly Pitino opted to take Samuels out when Wall was out. With Wall out it was a great opportunity for UofL to have their best players in the game and to go on a run. It seems they did go on a small run when Wall was out but when Wall came back I remember being relieved that we were able to stand without him.

Bledsoe was limping at the end of the game, so we will have to wait and hear if he is ok. He played ok, 12 points, clutch free throws at the end, 4 big turnovers that hurt.

UK only hit two threes tonight and they came from Patterson and Harris who isn’t known to be our best three point shooters. We went 2-14 from three, Bledsoe 0-3, Wall 0-3, Dodson 0-4, and Miller did not attempt one.
Speaking of Miller, the in state player who knows all about the rivalry laid an egg today. No points, no assist, 2 rebounds, 1 turnover, 0-1 shooting. I don’t know what happened but we basically won without him today.

Outside of Bledsoe free throws were not great. 21-34, 61.8 on shots where you get to take your time and no one is guarding you. Also it was at home where it was dead silent during the shots…Wall went 7-12, he is usually money from the free throw line.

We should have outrebounded them but both teams ended up with 36 rebounds.

Overall I’m so we won but it wasn’t pretty. At half we should have been up 20 but we let Louisville stay in it. I was glad to see Louisville got the lead one time by one point and from that point on we went and took the lead back and never let them have the lead again. Our Cats are not always pretty but they are tenacious.

Calipari’s thoughts:

Said officials did a great job controlling this game and the crowd booed…he mentioned this was a final four official crew and another boo occurred. I think he is just sucking up to refs he knows he will see again.

They tried to bate Cousins and it didn’t work. Bledsoe lost his mind at the beginning and Cal pulled him and told him to calm down we are playing basketball, it’s not a fist fight.

We could have easily lost this game and Cal says we are about 9-6 right now.

Cal said we have the classiest fans in the country. He mentioned he didn’t see one bad chant or poster (I wonder why he didn’t see a bad poster…) We don’t have to worry about anyone else because we are the best team in the country.

Cal praised Eric Bledsoe for his three throws, which he knocked down with ease.

He wasn’t impressed with the 18 turnovers, when you play fast you are going to have turnovers but three of them he specifically mentioned were inbounds where bad decisions were just made.

Stevenson played well until the end where he got beat on a play.
The greatest thing you can do is play crappy and win any way. Cal mentioned this is a great sign.

Cal wants to play Liggins more, he is breaking down their offense at times that is hurting his minutes but Cal likes his game and just needs him to keep at it.

UK is off for a week when we start SEC play against Georgia at home next Saturday. Georgia is 7-5, probably one of the worst teams in the SEC but to me I would love to blow them out. Losing to them at home last year to me put us in the NIT ending our long streak. They lost to Missouri by 28 today. Their best win was homea 3 point win over Illini.

Go Cats! We beat little brother!