And so, the Cats got their revenge. The 82-61 win over South Carolina Thursday night in front of packed Rupp Arena was mighty satisfying for a Kentucky team that continues to improve, gel personnel wise and find all sorts of lethal weapons with which to punish the opposition.

As usual, we offer you our thoughts on what’s developing with this special group of Wildcats.

First off, let us just say that Rupp Arena is becoming the place to be seen in college hoops. After hosting such illustrious spectators as LeBron James and Ashley Judd earlier this season, Ben Roethlisberger and Magic Johnson showed up to watch the Cats hoop Thursday night. Says a lot about the state of basketball in Lexington.

DeMarcus Cousins is ridiculous. The big man hasn’t even grown into his body yet, has very little vertical leap at this point, and yet he is already nearly unstoppable, showing amazing touch, a variety of moves and a fierce desire to score and dominate games. Enjoy him for another month, Cat fans, this guy will be taking his road show to NBA millions soon and, barring something unexpected, a long and fruitful pro career. Maybe HOF?

Darius Miller is back…again. When Darius gets a good start, he plays with confidence and is capable of knocking down any shot. UK will need this production big time in March.

We thought Patrick Patterson had completely disappeared just two weeks ago. We were wrong. PP is back in the NBA lottery pick hunt, and his soft hands and scoring ability are coming up big. He finally showed up with a nice all-around game against a South Carolina squad that had become his nemesis over the past couple seasons. That up and under move in the early second half when he scored with the left hand was the real deal.

One quick thought. Patterson and Cousins would be the starting power forward-center tandem for 20 NBA teams right now.

South Carolina made the game interesting at multiple points and remained within striking distance for far too long. But as has become customary with this team, you never really got the feeling that Kentucky was letting it slip away. It was just a matter of when the next big run would be. It’s that kind of confidence and swagger that separates this UK group from any other since the Pitino era.

DeAndre Liggins is flat out all over the court. Guy has become a totally different person. His length and lateral quickness make him a nasty defender and excellent garbage rebounder. He just gets better with every game. As much as the complexion of this team will change next season, the BBL can’t wait to see what happens when Liggins becomes a featured option. We’re calling it now. He’ll be an Evan Turner-esque stat stuffer and all-SEC standout next year.

John Wall is still the catalyst and it’s hard to find too much bad to say about him. But he and Eric Bledsoe are still too out of control. They push the ball when it doesn’t need to be. It makes us wonder if both of these superb talents being on the floor at the same time contributes to them pressing too hard. Next year, sans Wall, it will be interesting to see if Bledsoe can improve his grasp of game tempo. Right now, EB is sort of lost. His jumper is broken and his sense of awareness on the court is at a season low.

South Carolina is in good hands under coach Darrin Horn. They have some active, athletic big men who block shots and get a lot of buckets around the goal. If Horn can keep recruiting like he has, and word is his next class is top 25 caliber, then this team will be a force in the SEC East for the next few years.

If you doubted that the diminutive Devan Downey could play in the NBA, that pull up 35-foot jumper before halftime should probably make you think differently.

As we stated last week, sometimes Brad Nessler seems to be the superior analyst to Dick Vitale. Thursday night, a few possessions into the game, Vitale claimed that South Carolina had no answer for Cousins on the interior. To this, Nessler responded, “I don’t think anyone has an answer for that, Dick.”

Good win for the Cats. Now do the John Wall.

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.

We present our first look at Darrin Horn’s South Carolina Gamecocks.

Backcourt:
Devan Downey might be the most underrated guard in D-1. He is virtually uncheckable in transition and in the open court. He has a rare combination of speed, athleticism and ball skills. Downey will get his 20 and 6 every night. The other SC guards are good in their own right. Brandis Raley-Ross is a decent scorer while Evaldas Baniulis hit an uncanny 48 of 100 3-point tries last season. Watch out for a good incoming crop of long and strong wings.

Frontcourt:
Dominique Archie is a highlight reel jumping jack who gets out on the break as well as anybody in the SEC. He can play on the wing defensively, too. Juniors Mike Holmes, Sam Muldrow and Austin Steed will offer solid complementary post play.

Freshmen:
SC’s 3 incoming combo guards are impact players right away in the SEC. It appears Horn’s up-tempo system is luring skilled athletes to Columbia. Stephen Spinella, Lakeem Jackson and Ramon Galloway are all big, athletic and capable of scoring from the wing or off the bounce. Incoming JC transfer Johndre Johnson is long and lean and adds depth inside.

Outlook:
This squad has the potential to be USC’s best college hoops team since the Eddie Fogler Days. They are a serious darkhorse Sweet 16 group. They are balanced, experienced and deep. Of course, the SEC East figures to be a mine field where anything can happen.

BBL Take:
USC swept UK last season and its frontline flat out humiliated Patrick Patterson in Columbia. Expect war when they match up this year. An epic battle between John Wall and Downey looms.