The Big Blue Lowdown

We offer up a few thoughts on the happenings that matter most to UK fans.

The Rebs Come to Town
Everything about this game screams trouble for the visitors. Sure, Mississippi is a solid team that has spent the bulk of the year ranked in the top 25. But frankly, Kentucky is a match-up nightmare for a banged up, undersized squad that will be traveling on short rest.

Ole Miss is coming off its worst loss of the season, falling at home Sunday night to Arkansas in a game where they were...

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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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

UKHomer43 gives us his rundown:

The BBL witnessed a team grow up tonight in Gainesville.

UK trailed 7-0 and arguably played their worst 10 minutes of the season on National TV in the first half. They missed multiple layups and turned the ball over inexplicably during much of the first 14 minutes of the game. Thankfully for UK, Eric Bledsoe chose to have a breakout and career game tonight going for 25 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

Bledsoe was a one man wrecking crew in the first half...