2010 Kentucky Wildcats Men's Basketball - 5th edition

[WMR]

Yesterday's loss didn't upset me very much. You could sort of feel this game coming for a while, couldn't you? Hopefully this defeat taught them something.

[reds1869]

My wife's uncle was in Knoxville, in the front row, wearing blue. I wonder how his day went?

[WVRed]

For the record, this really doesn't bother me. With Tennessee likely trying to win the SEC tournament just to get a higher ranking in the tournament though, do you really want to give UK more bulletin board material with revenge already on their minds?

Oh, and I think we beat Georgia on Tuesday. Just sayin.

[dabvu2498]

Originally Posted by macro

I've seen today's outcome referred to as an "upset" on TV, and I think the term is being misused. Many people, UK fans and non, were predicting a UT win today. If so many people are expecting it, how can it be an upset? The dictionary defines a sports upset as "to defeat unexpectedly".

Tennessee has lost (I think) eight games at home under Pearl. Kansas went in there and got beat while ranked #1. Today's game was no upset.

It was an upset because a less-talented, less-well coached (according to UK fans) team lost.

Tennessee has maybe one guy that would start at UK (Hopson) and only 3 more that would get much time on the court (Prince, Maze, and Chism).

[joshnky]

Originally Posted by dabvu2498

It was an upset because a less-talented, less-well coached (according to UK fans) team lost.

Tennessee has maybe one guy that would start at UK (Hopson) and only 3 more that would get much time on the court (Prince, Maze, and Chism).

I'm biased, but I'd be shocked if Tennessee does anything in the tourney. They've done poorly with better teams than this before. As always they seem capable of pulling it together for the big regular season win but usually they fail to sustain that success.

And, while UK fans may find solace in calling it "not an upset", it is certainly an upset when you're considered one of two elite teams and you lose to an erratic team on the verge of dropping out of the top 25. In the same way, OK St. (or for that matter Tennessee) beating Kansas was an upset that shouldn't have happened.

[macro]

Originally Posted by joshnky

And, while UK fans may find solace in calling it "not an upset", it is certainly an upset when you're considered one of two elite teams and you lose to an erratic team on the verge of dropping out of the top 25. In the same way, OK St. (or for that matter Tennessee) beating Kansas was an upset that shouldn't have happened.

But using that logic, they shouldn't lose to anyone. They should've gone undefeated until they met Kansas in the final, and we know that's just not realistic for any team in today's college basketball world.

There's no shame and nothing unexpected about losing in a place where Pearl-coached UT teams have only lost eight times total.

[jmac]

Originally Posted by WVRed

For the record, this really doesn't bother me. With Tennessee likely trying to win the SEC tournament just to get a higher ranking in the tournament though, do you really want to give UK more bulletin board material with revenge already on their minds?

Oh, and I think we beat Georgia on Tuesday. Just sayin.

I was worried more about Georgia than UT. The bulldogs have been playin some excellent ball. Hope you're right though.

[macro]

Georgia's horrible W-L record is deceptive, that's for sure. UK had best not loaf into Athens taking the game for granted.

[cumberlandreds]

Originally Posted by WVRed

For the record, this really doesn't bother me. With Tennessee likely trying to win the SEC tournament just to get a higher ranking in the tournament though, do you really want to give UK more bulletin board material with revenge already on their minds?

Oh, and I think we beat Georgia on Tuesday. Just sayin.

Hopefully they will beat them on Wednesday too.

Anytime you shoot 2-22 from the point area you are ripe to be upset. This has been the achilles heel of this team all year long for the most part. Inconsistent outside shooting. I'm hoping they have hit rock bottom on this and spring back up. You can't get much worse than 9%. They also gave up way too many transistion points. At some point CBS flashed the stats that Tennessee has 21 fast break pionts to four for UK. You can't win like that either. But saying all that they almost did win while playing a fairly unspired game until the last ten minutes or so. Young teams typically won't come into every game giving it everything they need to,especially on the road. If they can learn from this it will help a lot in tournament time. We won't know how much they learned for about another month.

[Blimpie]

Originally Posted by macro

Georgia's horrible W-L record is deceptive, that's for sure. UK had best not loaf into Athens taking the game for granted.

Georgia's record this year has defied belief...

They have been tougher than hell at home (13-3) this year with wins over: Illinois, GA Tech, Tennessee, Vandy, Florida, etc...On the other hand, they are simply putrid (0-11) on the road.

UK had better not be looking ahead to Florida this week.

[cumberlandreds]

Originally Posted by Blimpie

Georgia's record this year has defied belief...

They have been tougher than hell at home (13-3) this year with wins over: Illinois, GA Tech, Tennessee, Vandy, Florida, etc...On the other hand, they are simply putrid (0-11) on the road.

UK had better not be looking ahead to Florida this week.

They should be more focused on Georgia after losing on Saturday. If they aren't ready to play then they have more problems than we knew about. They should be OK as long as they can take an early punch like they did not do on Saturday.

[WVRed]

I've had some friends who are WVU fans who commented that Tennessee exposed how to beat Kentucky. I replied "Tennessee didn't expose anything, the secret has already been out for some time now".

Run a 2-3 zone to perfection and force Kentucky to kill you with the longball. It will probably be every teams strategy from here on out, but its a matter of who can execute and even what venue it is in.

I look for us to end up in the Syracuse bracket with Villanova as our number two seed. Give me one of Villanova, WVU, or Duke as our second round team and I will be happy. Ohio State is the 3rd seed.

[BCubb2003]

Originally Posted by WVRed

Run a 2-3 zone to perfection and force Kentucky to kill you with the longball. It will probably be every teams strategy from here on out, but its a matter of who can execute and even what venue it is in.

Sounds perfect for Syracuse.

[Blimpie]

Originally Posted by WVRed

I've had some friends who are WVU fans who commented that Tennessee exposed how to beat Kentucky. I replied "Tennessee didn't expose anything, the secret has already been out for some time now".

Run a 2-3 zone to perfection and force Kentucky to kill you with the longball. It will probably be every teams strategy from here on out, but its a matter of who can execute and even what venue it is in.

Precisely... deciding to play zone against UK is not exactly rocket science.

The key is mixing different zone looks (3-2, 2-3, Box and 1, etc...); which has been the key to Tennessee's success against Kentucky.

Believe it or not, UK has led the SEC in 3-point shooting % for much of the season. If they even knock down 35% against Tennessee on Saturday, then Pearl does not look like such a genius.

[dabvu2498]

Two words: shot selection. Nothing wrong with shooting open 3s. 22 is too many, however, especially whe a lot of em are contested and you have guys like that can do damage inside the lane like they can. They also were not able to get much in transition because transition is difficult when you are taking the ball out of the net so much.