There’s No Place Like Home! Let’s Just Play in Rupp! BBN

2014 Preseason favorite University of Kentucky has been everything but that, the favorite. The season started off against Michigan State and Baylor at neutral sites and UK dropped both. No big deal. Right? Just freshman needing to find a leader and theirselves while in hostile territory. Well Kentucky’s next road test came at Chapel Hill against the then top ten North Carolina who just came off victories of Michigan State and Louisville. Once again the diaper dandies failed to find themselves and looked out of place during crunch time. One positive that came from the 3 losses was that the Cats were either tied or still one possession down with 3 minutes left in each contest. Also the combined number of points in the three losses was only 7. A loss is a loss though.

Then SEC play began. First up was Mississippi State at Rupp and the Cats handily beat them 85-63. With things looking up the Cats traveled to Vandy and again came away with a W, 71-62. With a road victory under the belt Kentucky traveled to Fayetteville to take on Arkansas. It’s no secret that when Kentucky comes to town the opponent always plays top notch ball and are usually mentally sharp. It’s the teams chance to get a good win for the resume come March.

After shooting a whopping 68% in the first half and 38% in the second half the contest went into overtime and the Hogs won on a last second tip in dunk by Michael Qualls.

Then came a 3 game home stand were the Cats walked away victorious in all three even with a struggling Willie Cauley Stein.

With an ice bowl looming in Baton Rouge Kentucky took on LSU and looked as if they were lackadaisical and another dismal game by WCS and LSU’s Johnny O’Brien putting up 29 making him look Shaquish, the Cats interior defense seemed lost and just plain lazy. One thing is for sure the Cats don’t match up well with teams with size, which LSU displayed and exploited Kentucky last Tuesday night.

Kentucky ranked #11 traveled to Missouri Saturday and seemed like they were ready,focused, but gave up plenty of lay ups as WCS again put in another clunker of a game in his home state.

The Cats (16-5) (6-2) SEC (13-0) Home (2-3) Away and (1-2) neutral take onOle Miss tonight at Rupp and then travel to Auburn Saturday and then Mississippi State next Tuesday.

The BBN is still waiting for the diaper dandies to come around and learn to play with poise on the road or the fans know it will be an early exit come March.

On the positive side Dakari Johnson and Jared Polson have been putting in productive minutes and playing with a fire under their rear. It would be nice to see the twins play with that kind of intensity and maybe the preseason “stone cold killers” will live up to the hype they brought from Texas.

With 5 losses on the season and dropping to #18 in the AP poll the Cats need to split with Florida and win out on the road to get a decent seed in the tourney.