Another question was answered Saturday, as the temporarily number one ranked Kentucky Wildcats rebounded from a deflating first loss earlier this week and thoroughly dominated a very good Vanderbilt squad.

Rather than recapping the entire game, we’ll go Clint Eastwood in this write up and give you the good, the bad and the ugly from today’s performance.

The Good

DeMarcus Cousins – Big Cuz is becoming a more complete big man day by day. The 260-pound goliath showed off an impressive combination of agility, hustle and knack for finishing around the rim in a 21 point, 10 rebound effort. Vandy had no answer for him in the post, as the big boy went to the line 13 times and racked up 10 or 12 fouls on the mix of big men who tried to stop him. As commentator Jimmy Dykes pointed out in the telecast, there is no big man in college hoops right now who is more consistent. The BBL is salivating over a possible chance to see him go toe to toe with Cole Aldrich in a late round tourney game.

Darnell Dodson – Getting a rare start in place of Eric Bledsoe (no news on why just yet), Dodson responded with four threes and 16 points. He played nice interior defense, too, pulling in seven boards and doing a nice job on Ogilvy and Taylor, both of whom struggled mightily. Getting more games like this from DD will be a huge plus down the stretch.

Rebounding – The Cats utterly dominated Vandy on the boards today, outrebounding them 39 to 21 overall and 18 to three on the offensive glass. Second chance points were the story as the Cats used their huge front line to dictate every offensive possession and keep the ‘Dores from making any runs late in the game.

Patrick Patterson – PP rebounded from a bad game last week to drop 12 points, which included a career best three three-pointers. But he’ll need to be more aggressive than he was today inside. Patterson passed up the opportunity to take his man to the rack or go strong to the hole on several occasions, opting instead to clear the ball back outside. For his personal future in the pros, and the success of UK this March, he will definitely need to play stronger and look to score. Coach Calipari should also give him more opportunities with set plays.

The Bad

Darius Miller – Not sure where Miller’s game has gone, but after last week’s 18 point effort vs. Arkansas, he’s thrown up two goose eggs and continues to look confused or scared.

Turnovers – The Cats turned it over 17 times, and seven of them were on Wall (who helped balance it out with nine dimes). Sloppy play on the part of UK prevented this game from being a blowout.

Free throws – Surprise, UK shot poorly from the line again today. The Cats missed 14 FTs, including a combined 12-21 by Wall, Bledsoe and Liggins, who did the majority of the ballhandling late. This may not prevent them from winning a championship, but the Cats won’t become a complete team until they get better here.

The Ugly

Technical fouls – Big Cuz received a tech in the second half and narrowly avoided being tossed in the early going, after throwing a vicious forearm to the head of a Vandy big man.

Messy basketball – In all, there were 58 fouls called in the game, and officials needed to separate or warn players on both sides several times. UK showed it can thrive in a brutal halfcourt slugfest vs. Louisville and then again today, but this is a better team when it plays to its strengths of getting out in transition and attacking the goal.

BBL Take

Kentucky made a nice statement today against a Vanderbilt team that showed athleticism and grittiness. The Commodores will be a much tougher test in their own gym next month. All in all, you have to be encouraged by the play of DeAndre Liggins, who logged 25 minutes, dropped nine points and continued to play the role of human bruise in diving for loose balls and playing tenacious defense. The Cats were also a force from deep range today, going 12-23 from behind the arc with five different players knocking down triples.

A top 25-ranked Ole Miss team comes to Rupp Tuesday for what should be another opportunity to prove this Kentucky is a national championship contender.

1) The Commodores come into this game with possibly their deepest team in the Kevin Stallings era. Ten players are averaging nine minutes or more per game and four of them are averaging double figures in points. Vandy returned seven of its top eight scorers from last season and added one of the school’s biggest recruits of the past decade in John Jenkins, a 6-5 guard who is averaging 11 points per game on a sick 49% percentage from behind the three point arc. This roster possesses a variety of weapons.

2) This year’s Vandy squad is a bit different from past editions in two primary ways. First of all, they are athletic and have several players who can slash and jump. Second, they are not just a perimeter oriented team that beats you with the long ball. This team has some size up front, and with the offensive game of A.J. Ogilvy, they will feed the post when they need a bucket. That said, they still shoot nearly 38% from long range and will knock down open jumpers all day.

3) How the Cats decide to defend Vanderbilt in the post will be something to watch. The 6-11 Ogilvy is more of finesse player with a face up jumper, while DeMarcus Cousins is an immovable force in the post. Vandy forward Jeffery Taylor is an athletic combo player who can also mix it up inside a bit. Will UK try to counter him with Patrick Patterson, or leave it to one of the wings?

4) Kentucky cannot expect to dominate this game, nor should the Cats expect the homecourt advantage to be as overwhelming as it was last weekend. Vanderbilt has been strong on the road, winning games at Saint Mary’s, Alabama, Tennessee and two weeks ago in Columbia. Most educated consumers of UK hoops have had the date at Memorial Coliseum in Nashville circled since the summer, but make no mistake, this team will come into Rupp expecting to win.

5) The Cats have come back down to earth and will likely leave the top spot in next week’s polls, win or lose this weekend. After a thrilling 19-game win streak to start the season, how will a relatively young UK squad handle its first bit of adversity? Vandy is a team that matches up relatively well with Kentucky’s deep and talented roster. The ‘Dores are experienced and go two-deep at every position. PG Jermaine Beal is battle tested and can handle the ball well enough to withstand Kentucky’s defensive pressure. The rest of the roster has enough athletes to run with the Cats, too. We expect a very close game.

Well, that was fast.

One week ago today, the BBL wrote here that “greatness can come in a flash, and be taken away even quicker.” No, we didn’t have Devan Downey in mind when we uttered those words, but we might as well have been discussing the diminutive South Carolina guard after the way he completely dictated the game in Kentucky’s deflating loss Tuesday night in Columbia, S.C.

True, many in the Big Blue Nation are having their trademark panic attack over the loss and yes, some in the national media are already taking on a rather satisfied air now that the “will UK go undefeated” stories have come to an end (without naming names, there are at least two “experts” under the employ of the worldwide leader who seem a little too happy about the upset).

But the real question is, how bad did this loss hurt and what did we as observers learn from it?

A Perfect Night for an Upset
From the start, it felt like it was going to be a rough night for the Cats. Those who watched the game on ESPN probably recall at least two or three occasions when commentator Jimmy Dykes said something to the effect of: in order to pull the upset, X, Y or Z have to happen. It’s safe to say now that they did.

Here are a few numbers from the game that must seem a little surprising to anyone who has watched Kentucky with even a passing interest this season:

• Patrick Patterson scored 5 points, Darius Miller had zero
• The Kentucky bench was woeful, scoring only 7 points in a total of about 48 minutes
• The Cats shot 38% from the field, about 12 percentage points below their season average
• South Carolina blocked 8 shots to UK’s 5 (we think this is the first time all year the opponent has had more blocks)

This is only part of the story, however. More specifically, this is just what the numbers tell us. To anyone who watched the game, the problems ran much deeper. The Cats were outhustled. SC beat them to loose balls. The big men for the home team were far more aggressive. UK lobbed lackadaisical passes on more than one occasion late in the game. The team in blue missed a number of chip shots and important free throws.

And frankly, Kentucky also got unlucky. There were several critical moments that told the story of the game. The first came at around the 7:00 minute mark, when a loose ball that looked like it might turn into a UK steal and breakaway instead dropped into the lap of Brandis Raley-Ross who converted an easy layup.

A minute later, with Kentucky down two, Darnell Dodson got a backcourt steal but somehow missed the uncontested dunk. One minute after that, in what might have been the play of the year so far in the SEC, Downey caught an inbounds pass and nailed a ridiculous baseline fadeaway at the shot clock buzzer. He got fouled on the play and hit the free throw to put SC up three, a lead which they held for good.

What Can We Take Away?
People often talk about a team’s first loss serving as a “good loss” for the long term health of the season. I don’t necessarily agree with this sentiment, but I do think that, for a roster as young as Kentucky’s, the pressure of trying to be the first team in 34 years to win every game could potentially be more of a burden than a blessing. Now that it’s out of the way, can we expect to see more losses?

Wall and Bledsoe need to clean it up. We’ve discussed it all year. UK’s backcourt is as spectacular as any we’ve seen in the nation, but the turnovers and reckless play could really come back to haunt them. This was definitely the case versus the Gamecocks. Nine turnovers and a lot of bad decision making from UK’s guards hurt.

Patterson and Miller, where did you go? Miller followed up his best game as a Wildcat with possibly his worst. He continues to be an enigma. Patterson has been steady all year but has laid eggs now in both of his last two trips to Columbia. He needs to play tougher and look to get involved in the offense. Kentucky should go to him more often as well.

Must stop dribble penetration. It may be true that UK won’t be facing too many more Downeys this year, but after the “olay” defensive effort last night, the Cats will need to stop guards who get to the rack. This weekend’s game vs. Vandy will be a good first test, as guards Jermaine Beal and Jeffrey Taylor can get to the hoop as well as shoot from deep.

Bench production is key. We already mentioned it, but Kentucky will need its bench to do more than what it showed in this one. Ramon Harris, Perry Stevenson, DeAndre Liggins and Daniel Orton combined to take only three shots and commit five fouls. That’s inexcusable.

Lowpost lapse. Things started out well. Cousins, Patterson and Orton scored 17 of UK’s 29 first half points and had a distinct rebound advantage over a depleted SC frontcourt. But it was a tale of two halves as UK’s bigs wilted down the stretch and allowed Carolina’s no-name big men to block and alter shots and ultimately win the rebounding margin.

BBL Take
The Cats have the nation’s most talented roster, top to bottom, in our estimation. The BBL thinks this will ultimately be borne out by the fact that as many as six or seven players on the current roster have a legitimate shot to be selected in the NBA draft.

Up to this point, Calipari has done a masterful job of taking this talent and meshing it, despite a difficult mixture of holdovers from the former regime and fresh-faced youngsters. But Kentucky must play better. Road games at Mississippi State, Vandy, Tennessee and Georgia should put them to the test.

Sounds easy to say, but we think of the South Carolina loss as more of an aberration than a sign of major trouble. Despite some of the alarming trends in this lackluster performance, Kentucky still managed to keep the game within one possession down to the final 10 seconds. Chalk this one up to a bad night on the road where the opposing team got every bounce and Downey, despite his small stature, stood taller than everyone else on the court in refusing to let his team lose.

There will be better days.

So now that Kentucky has returned from the muddle of mediocrity and landed back on top of the college basketball world, the work for 2009-2010 is done and we can shift focus to next year’s team…

Ok, we’re only kidding. But it is true that with the runaway success of Calipari’s first Kentucky squad, there has been surprisingly little ink given to any speculation or discussion of what his second UK edition might look like. Moreover, given the hype and hoopla surrounding this year’s on-court Wildcats, the recruiting trail has been ominously devoid of major news and rumors.

And so we thought we’d take a moment to offer a ridiculously premature look at what Cat fans might be able to expect for next year.

What the Cats Lose
First, it must be said that the roster Kentucky is currently suiting up looks more and more like a once in a generation collection of talent. Regardless of how these Cats finish, it would not be fair to expect this level of overall ability every year, or even every 10.

Next year’s roster will probably play out a lot more like the bulk of Cal’s very solid Memphis teams. That is to say that it will feature good overall talent and depth, veteran leadership and a slew of long, rangy combo guard-forwards well-suited for the dribble drive motion.

At this point, the BBL is highly confident that Kentucky will see four players selected in the first round of the 2010 NBA draft. Add to that the loss of three seniors, and there is going to be some significant turnover.

Next Year’s Nucleus
The nucleus of the team will lie with three juniors, Darnell Dodson, Darius Miller and DeAndre Liggins (we can already envision the “3D” label being applied as the season gets going), each of whom is a potential star when not sharing the ball with an NBA-laden roster. We expect these three to receive the bulk of the minutes at the 2 and 3 positions, with Liggins potentially logging some minutes at the 1, as well.

The Cats will also expect a huge step up from freshman Daniel Orton, who has the physical tools to be a future lottery pick in his own right. Josh Harrellson will add size and experience, and if Jon Hood gains strength and improves his long distance shooting touch, he could be a standout performer in the SEC.

Despite the heavy personnel losses and substantial drop in talent that Kentucky is likely to experience next season, these six players alone would constitute a legit top 25 worthy contender. But they’ll have help, too.

Another Huge Class?
One of the givens about Coach Cal is his ability to attract blue chip talent and next year should be no exception. Unfortunately, due to the uncertain nature of having multiple potential early entries, the Cats haven’t exactly loaded up on signees to this point, with only 6-5 wing Stacey Poole having committed thus far.

With that said, we expect the Cats to sign at least two more, and possibly three, immediate impact players for next year and probably another two or three project players. Pretty much all of Kentucky’s top targets fit the bill of the 6-4 to 6-8 long athlete who can defend and play more than one position.

The latest rumors seem to indicate that the nation’s top scholastic player, 6-3 Brandon Knight, will hold off on announcing his choice until March or April. If that’s the case, this will strongly favor Kentucky, as Bledsoe and Wall’s fates will have been decided by then, opening the door for another big time PG.

Our prediction is that UK will land at least one of Brandon Knight and PG stud Josh Selby, to go along with three forwards, led by C.J. Leslie, who was John Wall’s teammate in high school and is said to love it in Lexington.

BBL Take
All in all, we think the Cats will suit up another top 10 team with Final Four potential, but once again will have to depend on youth in key positions. A rotation of Liggins, Dodson, Hood and Knight/Selby in the backcourt, to go along with Miller, Poole, Hood, Orton, Harrellson and Leslie in the frontcourt would certainly contend for an SEC championship and high NCAA seed.

The BBL is incredibly excited about the transformation on display from DeAndre Liggins.

Liggins came to UK as a consensus top 25 high school recruit but was thoroughly handcuffed and stymied during his freshman year by former coach Billy Gillispie. In Gillispie’s grind it out, yeoman style, Liggins’ tendency to try to force the spectacular play did not do him any favors. By the second half of the SEC season last year, D-Liggins was all but an afterthought in Kentucky’s rotation.

At the start of this season, Liggins faced the prospect of sitting the entire semester as punishment for off-court issues, possibly academic in nature. No one other than Coach Cal and DeAndre himself know what the real story was behind his unofficial suspension. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Since becoming “eligible” Liggins’ emergence as the team’s sixth man has been nothing short of remarkable.

His play off the bench has been marked by high energy and outstanding hustle. He’s also become an absolute defensive stopper. Every time out, he offers a flurry of deflections and batted balls, and he has shown a knack for the blue collar play, diving on the floor and fighting for every loose ball. With his non-stop ballhawking, Liggins seems to be everywhere at once and his defensive intensity is currently best on the team.

We’ve always known him to be an excellent passer with amazing court vision. That part of his game was already on display last year. But now he has improved his jump shot to the point where he can consistently make the open three. In fact, his form is good, and if his feet are set he is deadly from behind the arc. With his long, athletic 6-6 frame, he’s also a solid rebounder who can mix it up in the paint. All in all, Liggins is on the verge of becoming a bigtime weapon.

It’s clear to the BBL that Calipari has been instrumental in his improvement. He is focused and playing much more from within the team concept. Everyone knows how good Cal is at assembling the pieces to a great team. But he deserves a ton of credit for his personnel management and ability to get kids to buy in. Liggins is a case study of this fact.

Right now he’s a little tentative as a ballhandler and creator, but that is understandable given the talent and skill level of the players around him. Still , we look for great things from DeAndre in the future and wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him become UK’s featured player by his senior season.

Though the BBL was high on Eric Bledsoe from the moment we saw tape of his scholastic days, it appears that the secret is now out among NBA GMs. As of right now, UK faces the very real possibility of losing Bledsoe to the NBA draft after only one season.

In fact there is a large contingent of pundits and analysts who are listing him as the second best point guard on the board behind only his backcourt mate Mr. Wall. Chad Ford of NBA Draft Insider recently said that Bledsoe would already be considered a lottery pick if it wasn’t for Wall.

To think that UK could have two top five picks in the same draft in its backcourt is hard to imagine. And both are freshman.

As we see it, here are Bledsoe’s primary strengths:

• Upper body and freakish athleticism
He is a man among boys next to most college frosh. He overpowers guys on his penetration and can finish and draw a foul. Also possesses the ability to leap with anyone and block shots despite a 6-0 frame.

• Speed with the ball
If there is a player in college basketball faster end to end with the ball in his hands it could only be John Wall. He is a human blur and is a one man press breaker.

• Ability to spot up and shoot from deep
Bledsoe shows excellent technique in his ability to set his feet, square and connect from deep. He is shooting 47% from three point land and has become the Wildcats’ most consistent three-point shooter.

• Low center of gravity and ball handling ability
He handles the ball like Isaiah Thomas when he is guarded one on one. He can break anyone down off the dribble, get to the rack and drop an assist or finish himself.

Bledsoe’s main weaknesses:

• Controlling tempo
He is a frosh and can play at warp speed on every play, leading to turnovers and out of control body movements.

• An overly aggressive nature
Bledsoe clearly plays with a chip on his shoulder. He will need to tone it down a bit and learn to harness his emotions before starring at the next level.

At this point it’s hard to predict what EB will do once his freshman season ends. If he continues to improve all the way through March, we know the lure of a big money NBA contract will be hard to resist.

Bledsoe himself has stated that he wants to return to school next year, unless he is projected as a top 10 pick. The question is, are there nine guys who will go in front of him?

We’ve said it before but, as UK fans, we should sit back and enjoy the show. John Wall and Eric Bledsoe, as we boldly predicted three months ago, might end up being the best UK backcourt of all time.

In the past 12 months Kentucky basketball has run the gamut of emotions in a way few programs (possibly in history) ever have. Reflecting on where the Big Blue Nation has been since this time last year requires a seat belt and a willing suspension of disbelief.

Approximately one year ago this week, Cat fans were riding high. Kentucky had re-entered the AP Top 25 on Jan. 26th for the first time all year on the back of a five-game winning streak to start SEC play and 11 victories in their past 12 tries, with the only loss coming on a last second shot at eventual Big East champion Louisville.

Rebirth or False Omen?
Just the week before, Kentucky had fired off a national salvo in an 18-point victory at highly regarded Tennessee. In that historic triumph, a primetime ESPN audience witnessed Jodie Meeks break Dan Issel’s single game school scoring record by dropping 54 points on 10 threes, an array of dazzling drives and a perfect 14-14 night from the free throw line.

At that moment, UK had seemingly exorcised the ugly legacy of the controversial Tubby Smith ouster, a string of embarrassing Rupp Arena losses to the likes of VMI and Gardner-Webb, and a general slide toward mediocrity over the last half decade.

Some pundits, who we will graciously neglect to mention here, even began touting Kentucky as an SEC title contender and a darkhorse Final Four threat. And at least for a week or two, the subtle, creeping rot of the now forgettable Billy G era still lay dormant and unseen.

A Black Hole
As tends to happen to programs rife with poor leadership and off-court drama, those happy times were short lived and in the ensuing eight weeks, the other shoe dropped…and dropped, and dropped again.

Without rehashing the dark days in great detail, suffice it to say that the 2008-‘09 Cats tanked, losing 8 of 11 games after debuting in the AP poll, fizzling out of the SEC tournament early and missing the NCAAs for the first time since the late ‘80s probation era. After an uninspiring double digit loss to Notre Dame in the NIT, Coach Billy Clyde was fired and Kentucky was left in a complete state of uncertainty.

How bad did it get? A promising incoming recruiting class began to reconsider their commitments. UK’s top candidate Billy Donovan publicly rejected any interest in the coaching vacancy, and leading scorers Patrick Patterson and Meeks openly weighed their NBA options. In addition, a costly and debilitating lawsuit by Gillispie loomed. Overall, on March 28, 2009, the Kentucky men’s basketball program was a shambles.

Only four days later, ironically on April Fool’s Day, UK formally announced the hiring of John Calipari, and in just the span of one short press conference the chaos and dread of the preceding weeks began to dissipate.

Emotional 180
Within days, Coach Cal convinced Memphis commits Darnell Dodson and DeMarcus Cousins to come to Lexington, then signed top 20 PG Eric Bledsoe, while maintaining Gillispie commitments from Kentucky Mr. Basketball Jon Hood and bluechip center Daniel Orton. The big news came about six weeks after Cal’s hiring—consensus top HS player John Wall would play college hoops for the Wildcats.

Though Meeks declared for NBA early entry, Patterson decided to stay and two months after reaching an epic nadir, Kentucky suddenly boasted an array of personnel to rival, on talent alone, any college hoops roster of the past 10 years.

Calipari didn’t stop there. Endearing himself to the program, the oft-stigmatized coach went on a state-wide campaign march, promising a return to glory to fans across the Commonwealth. It wasn’t all roses, however, as Cal’s name came up in multiple speculative articles about his alleged missteps at Memphis and UMass, where NCAA sanctions have tarnished his rep.

But UK found its way into the preseason top 10 in nearly every imaginable poll, and things were looking promising by the time football season started.

A Return to Prominence
The 2009-’10 Cats got the season going like a cannon shot—winning both blowouts and nail biters in spectacular fashion. John Wall needed one game to become household name material in the college b-ball zeitgeist, and the rest of the supporting cast showed flashes.

Then the Cats stepped up an early season of impressive potential by making believers out of the mainstream media. Wins over defending champs North Carolina and UConn in Madison Square Garden drew accolades, while victories vs. traditional powers Indiana and Louisville added polish. UK steamrolled through the holiday season and worked its way up the polls, all the while providing Sportscenter top plays material with regularity.

What next?
That brings us up to present day—an 18-0 team with a hot 3-0 start to the SEC schedule (almost sounds a little familiar). With a win this Saturday over former UK great John Pelphrey’s Arkansas Razorbacks—a game, by the way, in which UK will be heavily favored—Kentucky will become the No. 1 team in the nation for the first time in the regular season since 1996, and it will come exactly 52 weeks after UK’s ill-fated poll debut from last year.

Truthfully, though this season still has a ways to go, such a milestone would represent a full circle of fortunes. But if this retrospective tells us anything, let it be that greatness can come in a flash, and be taken away even quicker. Win or lose Saturday, Cat fans would be wise to remember that.

The BBL has surveyed the college hoops landscape and we see only a handful of teams that can beat UK provided that UK is on their game.

In no particular order:

Villanova
This is a really good team in the backcourt. Scotty Reynolds is a deadeye 3-point shooter and a savvy veteran.  Their other guards are athletic and super quick, allowing Nova to employ constant traps in the backcourt.  Their inside guys are young but big and athletic. UK would have to bring their A game to beat Jay Wright’s club in the tooney.

Texas
This is the closest team athletically and in size to UK. Texas has three really good frosh who play major minutes as well.  They have two beasts in the low post in Wangmene and Pittman.  Damian James is a smaller, better shooting version of Pattrick Patterson. This could very well be the NCAA title game should seedings hold in the tournament.

Syracuse
This is the one team because of their amoeba matchup 2-3 zone that every team fears in the Big Dance. They are extremely athletic in the low post and have good gap shooters in Rautins and Triche. They are not as deep as UK, Texas or Villanova but the zone allows them to get away with playing fewer players.

Kansas
This team is deep but slow. Collins, Henry and the Morris twins are the real athletes they possess. They are also not nearly as tall or long in the backcourt as UK, and we see them struggling against guards like Kentucky’s. But they are well coached and have solid tournament experience. They will be a tough out either way.

UNC/Duke/Miss State/UConn
All four of these teams have the depth, size and shooting to compete against UK. Each team has serious flaws and would have to be firing on all cylinders to take out UK in a tournament matchup. UNC is small and thin in the backcourt. Duke is slow and unathletic in the frontcourt. Miss St is just raw and very inconsistent. UConn has lots of size and talent but shoots very poorly from the perimeter and the line.

Next Tier: Georgetown/West Virginia/Vandy/Tennessee/Michigan State/Kansas State
These teams each have a few crucial shortcomings that make them a bad matchup for Kentucky. But each of them possesses enough talent and depth to possibly make a move as the season progresses. We see these six teams as being poised to make a run in March. Keep an eye on them.

This is how we see things today. Obviously, UK could lose to anyone on any day, as the close margin with Auburn illustrates. But if Kentucky is on its game, we don’t see anyone outside the teams mentioned above that can put together the kind of effort it will take to beat the Cats.

Onto Rupp next Saturday vs Arkansas.

Kentucky was fortunate to escape with a 5-point win today at Auburn after a sloppy performance where John Wall and Eric Bledsoe combined for 10 turnovers.

In what was probably his worst game as a collegian, Wall consistently over-penetrated and fell victim to a scrappy Auburn defense that got its hands in passing lanes and kicked and scratched Kentucky into 16 miscues as a team.

All in all, it was simply an ugly game for the Cats, underlining the type of Super Bowl effort Kentucky will see from opponents in every SEC game this year.

Auburn kept things interesting with good defense and some well timed three pointers. Ultimately, Kentucky had a little too much firepower for the Tigers, as Wall redeemed himself with clutch foul shooting and a dazzling driving layup in the game’s final two minutes.

What did we learn today?

• Calipari has shown himself to be a wizard in personnel management and player rotations. Around the 11:00 minute mark, with the Cats clinging to a 1-point lead, Cal gave DeAndre Liggins a short pep talk and then put him into the game for the first time since early in the first half. Liggins responded with a clutch three, a layup and a critical rebound to seal the win in the final minute.
• The closer than expected score illustrates the difficulty Kentucky will have if they want to make a run at a perfect season. Auburn came into the game at 9-8 and without a victory over a single notable opponent yet this season. Despite vastly inferior talent and being outsized, the Tigers kept their home crowd into the game and had the margin down to one possession with a minute to play.
• Kentucky again shot poorly from the free throw stripe and again failed to put away a lesser opponent after building a big double digit lead early on. These problems continue to plague the Cats, and along with the turnovers, seem to represent UK’s achilles heel.
• Daniel Orton only received 7 minutes today in a game where Cal obviously wanted to see more offense in the half court set. Stevenson and Harris were largely non-factors and Dodson missed several shots badly. We think the Cats will need to get better overall bench production and probably average around 20-25 points per game from Liggins, Orton and Dodson, with anything provided by the two seniors being a bonus.

For anyone who missed it, here’s an image of the January 11th issue of Sports Illustrated with John Wall on the cover.

The article is titled “He’s the Shizz” and can be read here:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1164564/index.htm

The article quotes John Wall as saying, “I know it’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to take so much work in the gym and studying the game, but my goal is to be the greatest point guard ever.”

Any more games like last night and Eric Bledsoe might be making an SI cover appearance soon…