Uhhhhhh yes....it came down to the end.
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Let's not make this thread a pissing match again please.
I hope for a good game, UK is the superior team and will probably win by double digits.
Lost in the fact that Bob Knight won't mention Kentucky is the fact that he won't mention Indiana either. Bitter old man.
My biggest concern is that much like in the NFL, when all else is equal(and I'm not saying that it is) but when all else is equal, the game usually comes down to who absolutely needs it more.
In December, you could tell IU NEEDED that game. They needed the catharsis. You got the sense in the way some UK fans were mistreated that not only did the team need it, but the campus did too.
Now? IU's playing with house money to a certain extent. They could lose by half a hundred and its still a successful season. Kentucky, otoh needs this one and the three that follow.
This is definitely UK's best shot at a title with many other contenders going by the wayside(Mizzou, Duke) struggling to get out of 2nd round(Kansas, tMSU) or dealing with injury/suspension.(Carolina, Syracuse)
For UK to cough up this golden opportunity could lead people to start questioning whether this model of continually bringing in 2-3 freshmen to lead the team per year will actually lead to a title.
IMO, if IU is hitting 3s they can absolutely beat UK.
Getting Davis in foul trouble again wouldn't hurt either.
Lost in the fact by most Indiana fans is the fact that Knight deserved what he got. Not a very popular opinion in Hoosier land, but I honestly believe that. I have HUGE respect for him as a basketball coach, but almost zero as a human being, and I'm a lifelong IU fan. He's a bully who never grew up. He's the worlds oldest child. Not to mention the fact that he had gotten complacent his last few years in Bloomington, and it was time for him to go. I mean, Mike Davis, who is a mid major guy at best, went to the championship game with a bunch of Knight recruits who he couldn't get out of the first round with.
I dont think so. A new regime came in at IU. Knight wasnt doing what so many had grown accustomed to. First round losses didnt cut it anymore. Davis recruited most of those guys.........Bob shaped them. Once the "Knight Guys" were gone, Davis showed what he could do on his own.....which wasnt much on the coaching end.
Iowa State and Florida had the same thing. Strong inside presence with an abundance of perimeter players. Kentucky blew Florida out twice, beat them again in the SEC tournament, and handled Iowa State pretty convincingly.
If you want a synopsis of the game earlier this year, here goes:
1. The game was in Bloomington the week after a young team reached the no 1 ranking. IU was the most hostile road environment UK had faced all season.
2. Home game also means home cooking. IU got all the breaks in the game, similar to how Kentucky got all the breaks the year before in Lexington.
3. Anthony Davis spent most of the game in foul trouble.
4. Terrence Jones had the worst game of his career.
5. Indiana was white-hot from three.
6. Even with all of this, it took a buzzer beater to still knock off Kentucky. That buzzer beater has been shown countless times on Sportscenter.
Now, look ahead to Friday Night:
1. Neutral site, and I am using that very loosely as the Georgia Dome will be 75% blue. It's called "Catlanta" for a reason.
2. See no 1, although the officiating in the tournament overall has been horrendous.
3. Not going to cover Davis and Jones, but Davis hasn't had a game in foul trouble since the IU game and Jones is impossible to predict. If Jones plays at half of what he did in Bloomington, it will be an advantage for Kentucky.
4. I look for the dome factor to impact both teams shooting from three. Unless you play in a dome (Syracuse), you will always see teams struggle, especially young teams.
5. The said buzzer beater that has been shown on ESPN has been nothing more than a motivational ploy for the Cats.
All that said, I look for Kentucky to gameplan the same way they did against Iowa State or even Ohio State last year. Collapse on the perimeter and force Cody Zeller to beat them inside. Zeller might have a monster game, but if it keeps them from hitting three's, Kentucky will slow them down.
Indiana needs to run, run, run and then run some more. Play a game that will end up in the high 80's. If there is one edge that IU has over UK it is that they are deeper. We simply can not play a half-court game with UK. Their D is too good. We have to get the ball up and down the floor. It will help neutralize Davis a bit and we have shooters that can kill a scrambling defense.
I am fully aware that we could lose a game like this 95-82, but any team that has had success against UK has forced a quicker tempo.
Kentucky is simply a better overall basketball team than Indiana. But if Indiana plays a style that doesn't allow UK to play much half-court D, I think IU has a fighters chance.
A few points I'd quibble over.
- While IU was 7 of 9 from the three point line in the 2nd half, IU was 9 for 15 in the game. That's certainly nothing to sneeze at, but it's also not an impossibly high number to replicate.
- the home cooking resulted in UK being called for 4 fouls in 2nd half. Maybe I've come to expect more from my home cooking officials, but maybe it wouldnt hurt to get to the bonus.
- My friend made the best point when he said IU has played well enough in about 4 or 5 games this yr. to beat an average UK performance. Now there's no guarantee that UK doesn't play an above average game, but that game wasn't a one time fluke, impossible to repeat.
This is totally off topic, but it makes me chuckle every time someone references "home cooking." I was watching football in B Dubs one Sunday and a Bengals game was on, and this Bengals fan, every time a flag was thrown against the Bengals, was all like "I can't believe this home cookin'." He was only mildly annoying until he was crying about, if you can believe it, a delay of game penalty. Yeah, because the officials only call that on the road team when the clock hits zero before the snap. I wanted to snap his neck after that. :lol:
That's almost as bad as the time at a Reds game that Masset was getting lit up and some guy kept saying "Come on Rick." My friend and I called all the Reds players Rick for a month. Rick Votto up to bad, followed by Jay Bruce. Too bad Rolen was hurt at the time or we could have had Rick Rolen and I could have sang "Never Gonna Give You Up."