Kentucky Ink

Before I begin, let’s start with the disclaimer that I was born in 1986 and my basketball memory starts in 1992. That eliminates the 101-100 shootout win over Alabama in 1979 and Kenny Walker’s buzzer beater against Auburn in 1984. I am aware of these games’ existence, but I have never seen them, so they don’t make the cut for the list.

With that in mind, let’s begin.

10. 2003: Kentucky 64, Mississippi State 57

There weren’t a lot of close games for the SEC’s last perfect team. The Bulldogs made us sweat twice. This one was much tougher than the one in Rupp, which saw the Cats pull away. As always in 2003, Kentucky played fantastic defense. Noted UK killer Mario Austin had an absolutely terrible game, being totally outplayed by Marquis Estill. Late in the game, Austin had a chance to put MSU in the lead from the free throw line and missed badly both times. Chuck Hayes sealed the game from the line in an extremely physical SEC final. In a move that has never sat well with me, Tubby Smith didn’t let the team cut down the nets, under the premise that the Final Four was also in the Superdome and those were the nets we wanted to cut down. Well, you always cut the nets down.

9. 1995: Kentucky 86, Florida 72

Our first game of the 1995 tournament was a late evening game in the Georgia Dome. The Florida game was in the middle of the afternoon. There is a considerable difference in lighting between afternoon and early evening in the Georgia Dome, and it showed in the level of play. A desperate Florida team played basket for basket with Kentucky for about 12 minutes. Subs Antoine Walker, Chris Harrison and Mark Pope sparked a blistering run that blew the game open. All three hit multiple threes during the run and turned a close defensive struggle into a rout. Most importantly, it allowed the stars to align for a game that will appear much later on the list.

8. 2001: Kentucky 87, Arkansas 78

This game got Kentucky one of the most ridiculous 2 seeds ever handed out by the committee. Arkansas won a very frustrating game against UK the week before and had blown them out in the tournament in 2000. This particular bunch of UK players just had a hard time beating Joe Johnson. The Razorbacks came out on fire, making seemingly every shot and getting every call. One play had my dad so angry I left the room. Cliff Hawkins got a steal, then his feet got tangled up with an Arkansas player and Hawkins was called for the foul. If I had to guess, Doug Shows blew the whistle. Keith Bogans hit a couple of buckets at the end of the half to cut the deficit to ten points, then he and Tayshaun Prince, along with a great effort from the late Marvin Stone, just wore down Arkansas in the second half. It was an extremely entertaining game that was a moment of toughness for a relatively soft UK team.

7. 1992: Kentucky 80, Alabama 54

If any game in the early Pitino era ever screamed out, “Kentucky is BACK!” it was this one. Alabama was an awfully good team with three NBA players, and they had beaten an Arkansas team that this particular UK team could not have beaten if they had played 20 times. But this group just owned Alabama. Even though they were just over 12 hours removed from beating Arkansas, Bama used a flurry of threes by James Robinson to take the lead at the half, and just like that, it was over. Jamal Mashburn was the best player on the floor and nobody on Alabama’s team could touch him. Uncanny Alabama killer Gimel Martinez had another great game against Robert Horry, including a crushing slam in the final seconds. John Pelphrey cut down the net and waved it around, dare I say as ecstatic as any UK player has ever been in any given moment. It felt great. And I’m convinced that SEC Tournament switched Kentucky and Arkansas’s places in the big dance. Ironically, I believe that UK would have made it to the Final Four from Arkansas’s position in the bracket, but the four seniors never would have become the Unforgettables.

6. 2004: Kentucky 69, Georgia 60

Sometimes it’s your own personal experience that makes a game special. In this case, it was my senior year of high school, and the place came to a screeching halt when this game began at 1:00 on Friday. Georgia had Kentucky’s number that year. In fact, they only had good games against Kentucky. And just like the first two games, this game was incredibly physical and very close. Cliff Hawkins had his best offensive game ever at UK, but Rashad Wright kept up with him shot for shot. Were it not for poor Georgia free throw shooting, it might not have come to this, but the drama came in the final five minutes. I had to leave school a few minutes early to get to an appointment, so I left the building with Kentucky up by a point and Georgia at the free throw line for a 1-and-1 after a timeout. I had to listen to this drama on the radio. Georgia missed. Chuck Hayes rebounded and launched an outlet pass to Erik Daniels for a layup. Cats by three. Wright immediately came down the court and buried a contested three. Tie game. Hawkins did the exact same thing. Cats by three. Wright tried another one, but he missed. After a Kentucky miss, Kelenna Azubuike got an offensive rebound in traffic and scored, plus the foul. Cats by six. Wright missed a driving shot in the lane, Azubuike drove baseline and threw down a ferocious dunk. Ballgame. Are you feeling this? It was beyond intense, and I think being unable to see it added to the intensity of it for me.

5. 2005: Kentucky 79, LSU 78

What a back and forth struggle this was. LSU dominated early thanks to Antonio Hudson going nuts from three. Kentucky came back thanks to Joe Crawford, who used a rare stint of playing time to score 14 big points. Crawford’s play, along with the second half shooting of Patrick Sparks, helped UK take a seven-point lead into the final 90 seconds. But missed free throws and two Darrel Mitchell threes cut the lead to one with less than ten seconds left. Randolph Morris made one of two free throws (Hayes, Azubuike and Sparks on the floor and we get the ball to Morris to shoot FT’s? LSU must have been playing great defense) to make it 70-68. Brandon Bass took matters into his own hands and made one of the toughest clutch shots you’ll ever see, using about a dozen friendly bounces on the rim to send it to overtime. LSU jumped out in the overtime thanks to Mitchell and Bass, and with less than two minutes to go, they led by five. Sparks shook loose for a three. LSU by 2. After Glen Davis missed a couple of clutch free throws, Azubuike drew a foul, made the first shot and missed the second. But Hayes rebounded, and after a timeout, Hayes got free from Davis for a driving score. LSU had a chance, but Tack Minor had the ball, and if you remember Tack Minor, you knew he wasn’t getting off the shot. Hayes got the rebound, slammed the ball down and popped his jersey. He had better games in his career, but that was the ultimate Chuck Hayes moment.

4. 1993: Kentucky 92, Arkansas 81

SPOILER: Three of my top four games are Arkansas games from the mid-90s. Shocker, isn’t it? My favorite UK team ever, by a gift from the basketball gods, got to play the 1993 SEC Tournament in Rupp Arena. Arkansas fans were pretty cocky by this point, as Kentucky hadn’t really come close to beating them in either of their two meetings since they joined the lead. Jamal Mashburn single-handedly killed the buzz of the Razorback fans. Without going into too much detail, the good guys led 17-0, then 21-2, then 24-4. Mashburn was on fire in a way you rarely see a player in a big game against a good team. After one Arkansas miss, Mashburn caught an outlet pass that was going to lead him out of bounds, only he made the catch and threw a touch pass behind his back to Rodney Dent for a huge dunk. This play made a cameraman fall over on the sideline like you see people do on the And1 Tour. Amazingly, Arkansas came back and cut the lead to two in the final minutes, but Mashburn and Travis Ford took over during winning time to produce the 11-point margin.

3. 1994: Kentucky 90, Arkansas 78

Arkansas was ranked #1 in the country and looked unbeatable. The only way Kentucky was going to beat them was to go crazy from three. In the loss at Rupp in February, they were ice cold. In front of a pro-Arkansas crowd in Memphis, they were on fire. They hit ten threes in the first half alone, but Scotty Thurman and Alex Dillard bombed away for the Razorbacks and despite playing a nearly flawless half of basketball, UK only led by 7. Arkansas switched up to a 2-3 zone in the second half and cut the lead to three, but eventually, the insane shooting destroyed the zone for six more threes in the half. Travis Ford hit five. Jeff Brassow hit four. Rod Rhodes came back from a suspension to hit all three shots and all seven free throws. Five players scored between 12 and 16 points. It was as complete and improbable a win as I have ever seen, because that 1994 team had hit the wall and Arkansas was such a terrible matchup for them.

2. 1993: Kentucky 101, Tennessee 40

They cheated us in Knoxville. I know we played like garbage, but we took the lead in winning time and they cheated us. Allan Houston did step across the free throw line before his shot hit the rim. That is a lane violation. Whatever Rick Pitino had in the speech archive to motivate the players for this game needs to be bottled. Switzerland could drop its neutrality, invade and conquer every one of its neighbors if it were as motivated as Kentucky was to destroy Tennessee. It was 14-0. Then it was 41-17. Then it was 101-40. That’s how much of a blur the game was. Kentucky has 19 steals. Jared Prickett had seven of them. Seven steals is an amazing statistic. Todd Svoboda outscored Allan Houston. This is what I call basketball karma. It was the single most vicious decimation of an opponent I have ever seen in basketball. But it wasn’t the best game.

1. 1995: Kentucky 95, Arkansas 93

What else could it be? Both teams were on top of their games. Arkansas used 40 minutes of hell and blistering shooting from Scotty Thurman to jump out to a 35-16 lead. Antoine Walker and Anthony Epps came off the bench to chip into the lead and cut it to six by halftime. Walker and Walter McCarty completed the comeback with some clutch offensive rebounding and scoring. Mark Pope tied the game at the line, then Walker stole an errant pass to set up a final play. Rod Rhodes drove to the rack, drew a foul and clanged both free throws. This was Pitino’s fault for not playing Rhodes during the final eight minutes and change, until that possession. Arkansas, given a second wind by the missed free throws, jumped all over UK in overtime for a 91-82 lead. Kentucky chipped away again, and it helped that Arkansas only made two of their final six free throws. With Corliss Williamson on the bench with his fifth foul, Arkansas lost their offensive flow. Walker got a quick score, then stole the ball and passed to Epps, whose free throws put Kentucky up for the first time since it was 2-0. Thurman missed a long bomb at the end and one more free throw by Tony Delk put the finishing touches on the best SEC Tournament game that will ever be played. Before the Connecticut/Syracuse six-overtime game from last season, this was the best conference tournament game ever in my eyes, and it probably would have been even if Arkansas had won.

Here’s to a great 2010 SEC Tournament. Go Big Blue!

Did Kentucky learn anything from the Tennessee game? The performance against Georgia was a good start, but it takes more than one game to determine if any learning has been done.

After Sunday, we will know if Kentucky has finally understood that they can play championship-caliber defense if they feel like it. It was the single most intriguing development of the Georgia game. After being backdoored to death by Tennessee and giving up 9076596207176970 layups in Knoxville and the first 10 minutes in Athens, Kentucky applied 25 straight minutes of devastating defense on Georgia. The Bulldogs played very well in the first half. They execute extremely well for it being their first year in a new system. They’re very well coached. The defense Kentucky played to close the first half allowed UK to take a two-point lead and kill any good vibes Georgia may have had about their level of play. They had played well enough to lead 98% of the teams in the country – not Kentucky.

After Sunday, we will know if Kentucky has figured out how to step on the throats of their opponent. If the defense Kentucky played against Georgia was good enough to destroy the Bulldogs’ good vibes, the defense in the first couple minutes of the second half broke their will. As well as Georgia typically executes, especially at home, by the end of the Kentucky defensive barrage, Georgia had gone into full panic mode. That started launching crazy threes, and had they not hit a couple of them, you’re looking at a 20+-point win. UK stepped on Georgia’s throat and effectively ended the game before the first media timeout in the second half, a welcome change from what’s typically happened this season.

After Sunday, the world will know that John Wall is the best player in college basketball. I’m sure you’ve noticed this, but Wall has cranked up the aggression level something fierce. When times were toughest against Tennessee, Wall attacked, attacked and never stopped attacking. The end result was coming back to tie the game. Against Georgia, Wall attacked the entire game, pretty much taking it over. He forced Georgia to run with him, and the Bulldogs couldn’t do it. Georgia shouldn’t feel bad about this because most teams can’t keep up with John Wall, and hey, at least they did better than Larry Drew.

After Sunday, we’ll all know that John Calipari is in for a huge surprise. He can say or think whatever he wants, but he will be stunned by the number of Kentucky fans in Nashville for the SEC Tournament. Big Blue Nation had a nice showing in New York for the Connecticut game, but it will pale in comparison to the way we take over towns for the SEC Tournament. It’s just too bad that the tournament couldn’t take place in a bigger building like the Georgia Dome, but the message should still make itself pretty clear.

After Sunday, we will know that it may take some doing for Florida to get into the big dance. That loss to Vanderbilt was terrible. It wasn’t terrible that they lost, but rather how they lost. It was Dan Werner Appreciation Night and they let the Commodores shoot about 89% from three. In the second half, even when they had built a small lead, they repeatedly left John Jenkins all alone for bomb after bomb. If any of the previous four Kentucky teams lost in that fashion (and they probably have), my wall would have dents in it from all the objects I threw. Florida will come out and zone, and it will work or a while. Then the UK offense will run through John Wall rather than DeMarcus Cousins, and the buckets will be plentiful. This isn’t a knock on Cousins at all. The offense works best with Wall running the show because our guys have a tendency to stand around and watch Cousins. At least one turnover in Athens was the result of this, where Cousins passed out of a double team and the guy wasn’t ready to make the catch.

Most importantly, after Sunday, we will know once again what it feels like to be the champions of the SEC. The only question is whether the championship will be outright or shared. And if by some minor miracle Florida shoots out of their minds (I’m already pegging Erving Walker for six threes, at least four of them contested NBA threes), we will know that the problems can still be fixed by the end of the SEC Tournament.

When the schedule was released in August, two weeks of play got special attention. One was the gauntlet in December that went North Carolina --> Connecticut --> Indiana. The other was presumed to be the roughest patch of the SEC schedule: Tennessee --> Mississippi State --> Vanderbilt. Upon the release of the schedule, I predicted 1.5 losses in the tough week in February – a win over Tennessee, a loss at MSU and a toss-up game against Vanderbilt.

It feels good to be proven wrong by this bunch.

Still, it isn’t like the sweep of February Gauntlet Week revealed Kentucky to be this juggernaut that’s going to blaze through the big dance like the 1993 team. This is a flawed basketball team, and it has been from day one. However, the shining light in all this is that the other top teams in the country are every bit as flawed as this one is.

So what has the sweep of Tennessee, MSU and Vandy taught us?

1. The light might have come on for Patrick Patterson.

Patrick couldn’t have picked a better time to play his three best games of the season. I said after Mississippi State that Patterson played the best game of his life in Starkville, but Saturday against Vanderbilt wasn’t too far off from that one. Vandy has some tough guys on their team. Patterson was the only guy who consistently gave the effort to outfight swarms of Commodores on the boards. He still doesn’t get the ball enough on offense, and again, I can understand somewhat because of DeMarcus Cousins being so good, but when he does get it, good things happen. His bank shot over AJ Ogilvy was an underrated clutch shot, and the corner three on the broken play might have been the most clutch play anybody on the team has made since John Wall’s drive against UConn. He has responded to the physicality of those three teams, rather than backing down from the challenges like he did against South Carolina. If he continues this level of play, this team is going to the Final Four.

2. Shooting is a huge problem.

If this team isn’t getting lots of dunks and layups, they’re laying some bricks. They can’t shoot. They can’t shoot threes. They definitely can’t shoot free throws. Quite frankly, it’s a wonder this hasn’t cost the team more losses. It wasn’t really the prime cause for the loss to South Carolina. But it will cost the team before the season is over.

3. This team can play defense if it wants to.

The last ten minutes against Tennessee, the last three minutes and all of overtime against Mississippi State and all 40 minutes against Vanderbilt were examples of championship-caliber defense. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened enough, and the main reason is effort. The freshmen have yet to adjust to the concept that you have to play balls out on defense for 40 minutes. This is understandable to a point, but that point’s almost up because it’s almost March. The good news is that they have shown that they can. The only question is whether or not they will. That means no gambling, no going for the highlight reel block when forcing a tough shot is more practical, fighting through the high screen, all that stuff. The defense in the Vanderbilt game brought hope because nobody in the SEC executes their offense better than Vandy, and that offense doesn’t consist of “run shot clock down to five seconds, launch 30-foot shot and pray” like so many SEC teams have done this year.

4. If it’s a one-possession game, the team with John Wall will win that game.

I don’t have to explain this. I’ll take my chances with John Wall making the clinching play. He’s done it over and over, and save for a couple free throw misses in Nashville, he’s yet to fail.

A message to Mississippi State fans: Don’t poke the bear with a stick. He’ll go off for 19 points and 10 rebounds against the best interior defender in the country.

I don’t blame State for pulling off all the stops. Beating Kentucky probably would have locked them into the tournament, barring a monumental collapse. When a team’s best win is Ole Miss, another bubble team, you can bet that team is going to be desperate when you come into their house in prime time. Despite the suspension of Ravern Johnson, last night was the best I’ve seen Mississippi State play in the dozen or so games I have watched them. According to some State fans, Johnson being out was addition by subtraction because he is a defensive liability and a streaky shooter. We can just agree to disagree on this.

With three minutes to go, Kentucky trailed by seven and was getting progressively worse with each possession. In other words, it was a near replica of the loss to South Carolina, except the opponent was better. So what made the difference in the outcome of this game relative to South Carolina?

To me, it’s as simple as this: Patrick Patterson played his best game as a Kentucky Wildcat last night.

As maligned as Patterson’s play has been during the conference schedule, last night was as close to the perfect game as Patrick will ever play in his life. He made great moves in the post. He rebounded with ferocity. He took charges. He blocked a few shots. He hit the most clutch shot he’s ever hit on that baseline jumper that tied the score with 40 seconds to go. And while that would be good enough in most games, he did two other things that really separated this performance from any of his other great games.

He called for the ball. He demanded it, got it and did good things with it. It was the first time he had done that all year. I understand anybody becoming a spectator when DeMarcus Cousins is blowing up the SEC and putting up insane numbers every game, but Kentucky needed Patterson last night and he was there for his teammates in a huge way.

The single most important thing he did was cranking up the aggression something fierce. There was no indecisiveness when he got the ball in the corner. He immediately knew what he wanted to do, and when he got it in the post against Jarvis Varnado, it was as if he were one step ahead of him, and that’s how he was able to draw the third and fourth foul on Varnado in about five seconds of game time. Compared to Patterson’s other two games against Mississippi State and Varnado, the jumping jack center didn’t make much of an impact. He didn’t make that much of an impact when he was in the game, but once he fouled out of the game, Kentucky’s size took over in the paint and on the glass. Varnado was the only guy MSU had that could go toe to toe with Patterson or Cousins for rebounds. Once he fouled out, the rebounds were the good guys’ for the taking. Patterson bears the most responsibility for making this happen.

Poise in the clutch can’t be overlooked. You’d have to go back to 1998 to find a team that I believe could have completed the comeback from seven points down and three minutes to go. The best thing about the comeback was that everybody on the floor had a huge role in it.

67-60
67-63 – D. Liggins three (J. Wall assist)
67-63 – P. Patterson block
67-65 – E. Bledsoe layup (J. Wall assist)
67-65 – Offensive foul – D. Bost (D. Cousins takes charge)
67-67 – P. Patterson jumper (D. Liggins assist)

And once the comeback was complete, Bledsoe played his only good defensive possession of the game and forced Barry Stewart into a shot that the Kodi Augustus banked three from the elbow thought was terrible. It had been a while since the team had had to make clutch plays when trailing. They failed the test against South Carolina, but passed with flying colors last night.

Now if only they can figure out how to guard the high screen…

Bernard King did the radio circuits this week in anticipation of the Kentucky/Tennessee game, guaranteeing a win for his alma mater over UK. As somebody who was born after Bernard King left Tennessee and whose only memories of King are from his time with the New York Knicks, it’s no secret I am a general supporter of Bernard King. If you help out my pro team, it takes away from going to a rival college. That’s why I like Allan Houston as well. But Bernard King should know that, just like his Knicks were never going to beat Larry Bird and the Celtics in Game 7 at the Boston Garden, Tennessee was never going to win at Rupp in that atmosphere with those rosters.

Let me get this out of the way: excluding any game where the main objective of the offense was to get the ball to Chris Lofton and get out of the way, last night was the best execution of a gameplan I have ever seen from a Bruce Pearl Tennessee team. They deserve credit for playing well and hitting tough shots. So, what turned the tide in the favor of the good guys?

Two words: One is “Wall,” and the other is “Bledsoe.”

Many people had wondered when John Wall would take over a game like he did in New York against Connecticut. You saw it last night. Coach Cal said in the postgame press conference that the team hadn’t prepared for Tennessee’s 3-2 zone, and it showed. You don’t see a lot of 3-2 zone these days. The team adjusted in the second half and once Wall figured it out, it was over. He saw holes in the zone and took it straight to the rack and scored. When the holes collapsed, he kicked it out and Bledsoe picked a great night to break out of a shooting slump. One 20-4 run later and the 52-50 deficit became a 70-56 lead. Ballgame.

With every championship contender, there’s a moment in the season where the entire team has an epiphany and puts it together. There’s a chance the run at the end of the Tennessee game could be that moment or Kentucky. We’ll know after Tuesday in Starkville.

Patrick Patterson worked harder in last night’s game than he has in any game at UK, and that’s saying something. I don’t care if the numbers in the box score are mediocre. DeMarcus Cousins had an off game, at least offensively. I can’t pile on too hard because he’s had nothing but great games for the past two months. But he was off last night and Patterson stepped up. He played defense, battled on the glass and gave a warrior’s effort.

As poorly as Kentucky played in the first 30 minutes of the game, the last ten were so good that I can take away one extremely important thing. For the first time all year against a decent opponent, Kentucky got an opportunity to put its foot on the throat of the opponent and did it on the first try. I don’t know what seed Tennessee will be in the tournament, but they’ll probably wear their home whites. I’ve said unflattering things about them, but the truth is that they aren’t horrible. They did beat Kansas, after all. The way they played is probably what the second round game will look like, and UK passed the test.

Another day, another SEC mercy kill for the Kentucky Wildcats.

Only twice this year has Kentucky put together a throat slash effort in conference play. One of them was Arkansas, and my message to the Arkansas fans is “you’re welcome.” The other one was yesterday. Don’t give me any crap about how LSU outscored Kentucky by two points in the second half. That doesn’t matter when you’re up by 28 at the half. It was a mercy kill, and if you watched the game, you had to feel for LSU.

One play really summed it up. Early in the second half, DeMarcus Cousins had a wide open dunk, but an LSU player fouled him to prevent the dunk. This “foul” sent the LSU player careening out of bounds into the photographers’ row. That is one team fully dominating another, just like Kentucky should always do in the SEC.

It was 6-1, then it was 10-10, and then it was 42-14. This is what good teams do to bad teams. I have about 97% of the UK games from 1992-2008 on VHS, and during the 90s, those teams went on big runs all the time. You could put very few of those runs up against what this team did to LSU yesterday. That was one of the best runs I’ve ever seen, and everybody contributed.

Let’s start with Cousins. I know Calipari will never do this because he’s smart, but it would be interesting to see Cousins play more in one of these blowout games, just to see how many records he could set. I think Trent Johnson is a good coach, but it was insanely stupid on his part to play man-to-man defense as long as he had his kids do. It was even dumber how he insisted on guarding Cousins straight up with no double teams as long as he did. Johnson ought to thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that he eventually switched up to double teams and later the 2-3 zone because if he hadn’t, Cousins would have gone for 50 and 30. It would have been a Wilt Chamberlain box score and he would have fouled out all of Johnson’s players. The man is a behemoth, and it has been a pleasure to watch him.

Of course, there are still frustrating moments with Cousins, but these aren’t even his fault. Did you see the offensive foul he had in the first half when he whacked that ginger with his elbow? For starters, it was hardly even a foul to begin with, and if another UK player had done this in Rupp Arena, there probably wouldn’t have been a call. But it was Cousins and it was a road game, hence the whistle. Secondly, who are the referees to watch that play as it happened and feel the need to check the monitor to determine the level of malice? Cousins wasn’t trying to knock the guy’s head off and he’s done far worse this season. He grabbed a rebound in traffic and tried to clear room. What’s he supposed to do when he lands on his feet with the ball and two guys are surrounding him? Bring the ball down and let them steal it? Doug Shows was desperate to call a technical foul for that one, but cooler heads prevailed. I’m happy that Calipari stood up for Cousins at the press conference.

Onto the other players, Patrick Patterson still doesn’t get enough touches in the set offense, but he has put together three very good efforts in a row after the terrible game against South Carolina, each one better than the last. He’s asserting himself more on both sides of the court and Calipari has said as much.

If you’re a Kentucky fan, no player’s success on this team should thrill you more than that of DeAndre Liggins. One of the reasons why Texas has struggled the last month is a lack of role definition on their roster. Aside from a couple guys, nobody on Texas knows what their main goal is for the betterment of the team, and so there’s clearly a case of too many alpha dogs that feel the need to take the ball in crunch time. That’s what I love about Liggins. He isn’t asked to do much, but he is very good at what he does. UK has always had a history of solid “energy guys” like James Lee, Heshimu Evans, Chuck Hayes and Ravi Moss. Liggins is just like that. He rebounds. He defends. He hustles more than anybody on the team. He finds himself in the right place at the right time on offense. He initiates the offense with the dribble drive. He’s developed a fairly reliable long-range shot. He plays so much more within himself compared to last year. What’s not to like?

Another guy that stood out for me yesterday was Daniel Orton. Sure, he fouled too much. What else is new? But when he was on the floor with Cousins, he had to play power forward, which meant that he had to guard Tasmin Mitchell, who most small forwards in this country can’t guard. Mitchell never scored on Orton. Every shot he took was contested and looked uncomfortable. Orton is also getting more comfortable on offense. He showed some nice touch when he got the ball.

Bama is a setup game. Calipari knows it. Just because Bama has blown leads in every SEC game doesn’t mean they’re terrible or untalented. They just don’t know how to win. With Tennessee and Gameday fast approaching, it’s essential that Bama doesn’t get overlooked.

Super Bowl prediction: Colts 39, Saints 37