The Big Blue Lowdown

The Kentucky Wildcats have been summarily castigated by local and national media outlets after a “subpar” double digit victory over Alabama at Rupp Arena Tuesday night.

John Wall’s six turnovers and the Cats’ overall sloppy play seem to be the most story-worthy topics related to UK’s performance, despite the fact that ‘Bama never got closer than six points after the 10:00 minute mark of the first half and only rarely threatened to make things interesting.

In truth, the criticism of Kentucky has been somewhat merited, as there were alarming signs throughout the evening. But how concerned should Cat fans be? We offer our thoughts on what problems this team is facing and how they could affect the season’s ultimate goal of hanging banner number eight.

Youth and Inexperience
It’s easy to forget how young this team is. The Wall-DeMarcus Cousins hoopla has been so pronounced it almost seems like these guys are already in the NBA. But when your top eight players include four freshmen and three sophomores, you can’t fall back on the comfort of knowing you’ve been there before. Quite frankly, this team hasn’t. Keep in mind that even Patrick Patterson, the “cagey veteran” of the bunch, has not played a single minute in an NCAA tournament game. How will this affect these kids come March?

Mental Focus
It goes hand in hand with the youth thing, but Kentucky’s mental focus was flagging in their loan loss to South Carolina, and then again for spurts vs. Alabama. Cousins has shown a propensity to let emotion get the better of him. Meanwhile, Darius Miller has at times looked psychologically frazzled or lost. Thankfully, one of the more remarkable qualities about John Wall has been his composure and poise. No matter how many times he might turn it over, Wall is ready to bounce back and respond, even under great adversity (see Miami of Ohio, Stanford, UConn). All in all, UK will need to avoid emotional meltdowns, team infighting and the kinds of unforced mistakes that occur when your head isn’t in the game.

Patterson’s Production
It’s been discussed ad nauseum both here and elsewhere, but Patterson must be a go-to option for this Kentucky team in late game situations. In the early part of the year, PP was a post-up threat and consistently found a way to get buckets close in with the jump hook or spin move into the paint. His game today revolves more around mid-range face up jumpers, but with the attention Cousins commands, Patterson should have more opportunities to score from the weakside post. More importantly, however, Patterson needs to find a renewed sense of aggression and embrace the role of gritty, lunch pail guy who never quits on a play.

Wing Scorers
We discussed the importance of UK’s “3D Men” earlier this week. Tuesday night was another example of how erratic production from the three position can impact Kentucky’s fortunes. Miller and Darnell Dodson were practically invisible against Alabama, and if it wasn’t for Liggins’ workmanlike 26 minutes, the Cats would have received absolutely nothing from the wing. All in all, as a team, Kentucky was 3-16 from behind the three point arc, and that will also need to change for UK to win in March. Eric Bledsoe will need to get in on the act, as he is currently UK’s most accurate deep threat but went 0-3 Tuesday.

BBL’s Take
It’s becoming clearer every day that Kentucky hasn’t faced a truly elite team in college basketball. Sure, the SEC has offered its challenges (and there are more to come), but nearly all of the major obstacles we identified in the preseason have failed to live up to expectation. It is a scary proposition to think that a team as young as Kentucky could potentially enter the NCAA team without a single opportunity to even play a top 10 caliber team. What this means is that the margin for error will be drastically reduced in late round tourney games, and some of the flaws that UK has up to now gotten away with will flat out get them beat.