Kentucky Ink

SMoli-MG-7033-1.jpg

This is how the Cats win.

This is how the Cats win.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.  

The Wildcats delivered a fitting performance for a cold, dreary February evening in the Bluegrass last night.  Another mediocre opponent, another mediocre win.  This team has all the physical talent and natural gifts to absolutely overwhelm conference foes of Alabama's caliber, especially in Rupp Arena, but rarely has that been the case.  Last night was an all too familiar scene in Lexington.  Undermanned opponent comes in, doesn't flinch, jumps out to a lead, gets chased down by the Cats, but is never completely put away.  

At this point the primary concern isn't learning a new system or figuring out how to play together.  They've gotten that down.  Now it's all about how to maintain focus and keep the intensity white hot until the opponent wilts under the pressure and succumbs to defeat.  We've all seen the intermittent brilliance of this team when they're focused on the task at hand and it's scary good.  However, far more often than not we've had to suffer through a performance similar to last night's.  Lack of focus.  Unforced errors.  Lapses in intensity.

A lot of people have proclaimed this season that Kentucky is back.  They're mostly correct.  Kentucky is back in the top five of the rankings.  Kentucky is back on the cover of magazines.  Kentucky is back on SportsCenter.  Kentucky is back in the national title hunt.  However, the Kentucky Mystique is still in the moth balls in the bowels of Memorial like an old SEC Championship trophy.  The truth of the matter is that the mystique that makes Kentucky, well Kentucky, may remain a relic in some hidden corner somewhere for the duration of this season.

What exactly is the Kentucky Mystique?  The Kentucky Mystique is the unquestioned psychological advantage previous Kentucky teams have enjoyed over their SEC brethren and other lesser opponents who dared set foot on a basketball court against them.  The Kentucky Mystique is what turns a would be Andy Dufresne into just another inmate by instilling fear and crushing hope.  Instill fear.  Crush hope.  It's pretty damned difficult to instill fear when the visiting team is allowed to come into Rupp and take an 11-4 lead to open the ball game.  It's damned near impossible to crush hope when a team is allowed to chip away at a comfortable lead and bring it to within a handful of possessions, or less in the second half.  

In fairness, it's not all on this team.  They have the unusual disadvantage of following one of the most lackluster periods in the history of Kentucky basketball.  Instilling the fear and crushing the hope is always easier to achieve when the opponent has been worn down by years of beatings at the hands of the Cats and most seasons that's typically been the case.  

Unfortunately, today's crop of SEC players have held their own against Big Blue.  They don't know the humiliation of giving up 86 points on their home court...in the first half.  They haven't suffered through numerous drubbings that were it a fight would have been stopped at the first TV timeout.  The current SEC is made up of players that have beaten the Cats.  That have celebrated on their home courts with thousands of fans after notching a victory or Kentucky.  That have even sent 23,000 people home in stunned silence at Rupp Arena.  

Heading toward March this season will turn on psychology.  Can this team reach a point mentally that allows them to maintain focus for an entire forty minutes?  Can they reclaim the mystique that kills the hope of a potential giant killer in the middle rounds of the NCAA Tournament by that first TV timeout?  How will the season end; with a bang or a whimper? 

I really felt like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day tonight watching the Cats.  Sprint out to a big lead.  Allow lesser opponent to climb back in it.  Push the lead out again.  Turn the ball over and give up easy transition baskets.  Settle for a 10 point victory when a 20 point blowout was well within their grasp.  Kidnap  Punxsutawney Phil and drive off the Clay's Ferry Bridge.  Okay, maybe not that last part, but it is getting rather frustrating.  When are the Cats gonna get it right?  When are they gonna put it all together?  It's time to put the pieces together, play a complete game, marry Andie MacDowell and wake up on February 3rd.  

Other Observations

- Start Dodson for the rest of the season.  He gets his shots up and gets in a rhythm he can single handedly extend defenses that are designed to pack it in against the Cats huge frontline and stop penetration.

-Patterson probably had his best move of the season tonight when Ole Miss decided to play a little man.  He went up and under his man, drew the contact and finished.  He also converted at the free throw line which is a great sign.

-The John Wall frustration angle was a completely manufactured non-story.  ESPN of course ran into into the ground like it was a bruised Duhon rib.  Hopefully, we can move on to something else for the shellacking of LSU.  

-Patterson has gotten into a bad habit of barely getting out of bounds on the inbounds.  If you DVR'd the game (I didn't) go back to about the 16:20 mark of the second half.  It looks to me like he never got out of bounds before tossing it in.  Someone is going to pick up on this and point it out to the refs and it might cost us a big possession.

-It's a telling sign that a double digit lead over an NCAA Tournament team is no longer totally satisfying.  Kentucky basketball has come a long way in a year, but is still not all the way back.  As to that point, I will address that later this week.  

Patrick Patterson is an immensely talented player.   Solid as a rock.  Leads by example.  Defers to a fault.  And this might be a bit controversial, and it's certainly not meant to disparage either, but Patrick Patterson & John Calipari are not a match made in Big Blue Heaven.  Go ahead.  Get it out of your system.  I'll wait.

What?  You're full of it!  

Mattox has lost his mind.  He must be a closet UofL fan.  

There's the typical Kentucky fan with unreal expectations.  One loss and he's complaining about the coach.  

Dumbass!

Feel better now?  Good.  Now that we have the obligatory ignorant commentary out of the way allow me to explain myself.  When John Calipari first came to Lexington he addressed recruiting and said something to the effect of we will get our guys.  Not everyone is cut out for this, we won't get everyone, but we will get our guys.  And by our guys he certainly meant his guys, which is as it should be since he's the head coach.  Well what exactly is his guy?  Let's take a look.

Of the thirteen scholarship players on the current Kentucky roster John Calipari recruited five of them.  I'm sure you can get the first four.  Bledsoe.  Cousins.  Dodson.  Wall.  The fifth; DeAndre Liggins.  What's the one trait that all those guys have in common?  Assertiveness.  At no point has anyone ever had to beg those guys to take a shot or become involved in the offense.  All are ready, willing and to varying degrees able to assert themselves on the offensive end of the court.

Which brings me back to Patrick Patterson.  I went to Memorial Coliseum with my buddy Matt to watch his Huntington High squad play a Scott County team that was led by Bud Mackey and Matt Walls.  Scott County was a great Kentucky high school team, but they lacked a dominant post player.  Huntington was practically a national all star squad.  They featured six players that received D-1 scholarships including Patterson and O.J. Mayo.  

Well that night as we watched Mayo dominated the ball.  He took shot after shot after shot and was the focus of the Huntington offense.  Scott County had the guard play to at least contain Mayo, but Patterson could have eaten them alive in the post.  Could.  He did not.  They did not run one set play for Pat.  He never demanded the ball.  He was content to let Mayo play Batman to his Robin despite having a much greater advantage in matchup.  Scott County pulled off the improbable upset of the loaded Huntington squad.   

Matt and I chalked it up to coaching that night.  Put it almost all at the feet of the Huntington head man for failing to run his offense through Patterson, who was truly a man among boys at the high school level.  Knowing what I know now and seeing what I've seen over the course of 2.5 seasons at Kentucky we may owe that guy an apology.

By all accounts, Patrick Patterson is a phenomenal worker in practice and in the classroom.  He leads by his strong example.  However, he does not assert himself on the basketball court the way he is capable of doing.  His freshman season he was content to let the offense run through Ramel Bradley and Joe Crawford.  That team didn't get going until those two guys bought into what Gillispie was selling and then they salvaged their season.

Last year it was Jodie Meeks.  Even as the coach browbeat the entire team into submission and implored them to run everything through Patterson a lot of the time things still went through Meeks.  Patterson probably had his best season last year and took more shots, but it took his coach demanding that sets be run through him.  Patterson did not assert himself.  His coach asserted him.  

John Calipari is the type of coach who will let his star players shine with his Dribble Drive Motion Offense.  It's why top high school players line up to play for him.  They know they can showcase their skills.  Calipari gives a freedom on offense that allows aggressive/assertive players to be just that; aggressive and assertive.  

Patrick Patterson and John Calipari just aren't a great fit as player and coach.  It's not the coach's fault.  It's not the player's fault.  They didn't meet, fall in love and decide to get married.  No.  This is an arranged marriage.  It isn't a disaster, but it isn't perfect either.

John Calipari wants his guys to step up and take it.  Seize the moment.  Showcase their skills.  Assert themselves on offense.  It's why he recruits guys like Cousins and Wall.  They'll do just that.  Patrick Patterson will not.  He'll work harder than everyone in practice.  He'll do well in the classroom.  He is not prone to getting into the huddle and demanding the ball from his teammates.  He is not prone to demanding to be the guy that takes the big shot.  He's content to defer.  To be a background player.  

If this team is going to maximize its potential and cut down nets in April, the relationship between Patrick Patterson the player and John Calipari the coach is going to have to be addressed.  The one thing that gives me hope is that this coach has shown he is willing to make adjustments.  To work with the parts he has and not plug square pegs into round holes.  He may just find that he's going to have to push Patrick Patterson in a different way.  To assert his star player by running more of the offense through him as opposed to waiting on Patterson to become more like Cousins and demand touches or look for his shot.  

Patterson is a great player.  He just needs to be pushed a little differently than the guys that Calipari typically recruits and coaches.  Here's hoping it gets worked out by March because if 54 fades into the background, Cat fans' dreams of 8 will fade as well. 

A Bird, A Plane..

The Florida Gators faithful will be treated to something very familiar tonight in Gainesville.  When they come out to support their Gators they will get to witness the most hyped, most talked about, most exposed player in college.  Yes.  Superman will once again be doing his thing in Gainesville.  The only problem is this time he'll be wearing the other team's jersey.  Bizarro World for the Rowdy Reptiles as John Wall leaves Metrop...err Lexington to showcase his super human abilities on the SEC road for the first time.  As Wall leaps Erving Walker in a single bound leaving Jimmy Dykes stammering to find the right superlatives to describe what everyone just witnessed the Gator Nation will get to experience first hand on the hardwood what the rest of the nation felt for the past four seasons on the gridiron.  

Match Em Up

Road Kill

Outlook

~Huge win for the Southeastern Conference this weekend with Tennessee knocking off undefeated Kansas.  I know  it's pretty much sacrilegious for a Kentucky fan to want Tennessee to succeed at anything, but a stronger conference helps better prepare the Cats for the NCAA Tournament.  I'll take a 14-2 or 13-3 conference mark over a 16-0 romp every time if it makes the difference in being national champions or a region finalist.  

~Georgia gave the Cats quite the battle on Saturday.  The SEC East in basketball is shaping up a lot like the SEC East in football.  Kentucky will be playing the role of the Florida Gators as the prohibitive favorite and everyone else will be slugging it out for second place.  I think South Carolina is the weak link thanks to the attrition they have faced this season, but Tennessee, Florida, Vandy and even Georgia all look like teams that could finish within 1-2 games of each other and with winning conference records.  I'll take Vandy as my second place team though, because Tennessee's lack of depth will become a problem down the stretch.  Give me this finish:

1. Kentucky 14-2
2. Vanderbilt 12-4
3. Tennessee 11-5
4. Florida 10-6
5. Georgia 10-6
6. South Carolina 6-10

~DeAndre Liggins has been the surprise of the season.  Whatever transpired early is this year is apparently behind him.  The kid has come with the right attitude, done everything that has been asked of him and has had a positive impact each time he enters the game.   Maybe he will be rewarded with a start in the very near future.  IMO he's definitely earned it if he does get the starting nod.  

~Patrick Patterson has been a little too deferential on this team of late.  According to KenPom.com, he's only involved in 20% of the teams possessions.  That's just not enough for someone that can score on virtually anyone that's guarding him at this level.  I watched him play once in high school against Scott County in Memorial and back then he deferred to to his teammates, including point guard O.J. Mayo who dominated the ball.  His play this season is somewhat reminiscent.  Pat seems a little too content to fade into the background a bit when he has talented teammates.  He should demand the ball in the huddle and improve upon his 9 field goal attempts per game.

~Midway point of the regular season and still searching for that first loss.  If the Cats manage to run this to 20 plus wins without a loss and Texas goes down in the next few weeks then the quiet rumblings of an undefeated regular season will become a roar.  Get it into the 20's and ESPN could give the Cats the Barry Bonds treatment, breaking into games with live coverage down the stretch in tight games.  It's fun and hard not to get wrapped up in the pursuit, but hopefully that first loss won't be too disappointing.  The real prize awaits the first Monday in April in Indy.  

~A little preview of the matchup with the Gators tomorrow.  I'll give you a hint, it will sound very familiar to anyone who has followed them in their non-championship seasons.

~Bobby Knight update:  He's still a jackass.  

If the Joker Phillips Era is as successful as everyone hopes then today could mark the beginning of something truly special at the University of Kentucky.  Something that hasn't happened in the Commonwealth since Adolph Rupp stalked the sidelines at Memorial Coliseum.  An entire generation of Kentuckians could grow up knowing only Joker Phillips as the head football coach at the University of Kentucky and that's quite rare in this day and age.  

Joker Phillips is by all accounts a lifer at the University of Kentucky.  He grew up in the Commonwealth, played for the Cats and was an assistant coach here under two different head coaches (Bill Curry & Rich Brooks).  The man bleeds blue and at only 46 years of age he has quite a lot of days ahead of him on the sideline.  It's very much within the realm of possibility that Joker Phillips could be the head coach at the University of Kentucky for the next 20 years or 25 years or even 30 years.  

That's truly a remarkable thought to ponder.  When I was a kid Jerry Claiborne retired and Bill Curry arrived with much fanfare to take the Kentucky program to heights not seen since The Bear.  Curry's unappealing  style and unsuccessful tenure gave way to the Air Raid of Hal Mumme.  Claude Basset's recruiting tactics helped usher in the short lived Guy Morriss Era.  Then amid more head scratching than fanfare Rich Brooks arrived to take over the probation riddled program.  Rich Brooks retired this week as the sixth Kentucky football coach in my lifetime (Fran Curci was coach the year I was born).  

The basketball side of things hasn't been much different.  Joe B. Hall, a Harrison County native like myself, has been the longest tenured Kentucky basketball coach of my lifetime.  His thirteen years are three more than any other basketball coach since Rupp and four more than any Kentucky football coach ever.  Hall's retirement brought forth the ill fated Eddie Sutton Regime which lasted only four seasons in the Bluegrass, still good for double that of the Billy Gillispie Error.  Sutton was replaced by Rick Pitino who pulled eight seasons on the sidelines before taking an astronomical payday from the Boston Celtics.  Pitino's replacement, Tubby Smith spent ten seasons on the sidelines before escaping the white hot spotlight of Kentucky basketball for the freezing winters of Minnesota.  Current Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari, in his first season, is the sixth head men's basketball coach of my lifetime.  

All of those men, in both sports, left their mark on the respective programs.  Some of those marks can be found in the trophy cases of their team while a few left their marks in the NCAA infractions record book and one even left his dignity  on a golf course in Nicholasville at 3am.  However, none of those men made the program their program.  Joker Phillips can do that.

Phillips has the opportunity to make Kentucky football his in much the same way that Kentucky basketball will forever be synonymous with Adolph Rupp.  His tenure alone can potentially eclipse the tenure of his five most recent predecessors.  In the future an entire generation of Wildcat fans could only know one man as their football coach, Joker Phillips.  Joker Phillips stands on the precipice of history with an opportunity to make this his program.  Best of luck coach and Go Big Blue.