I've been defending Terrence Jones for his unusually bad ballhandling and shooting since he badly dislocated his pinkie, so, after my workout a couple of days ago, I decided to test my hypothesis that the reduction of hand "spread" with the pinkie taped to the ring finger on one's dominant hand can severely decrement the ability to shoot and handle the ball.

Some background: I'm almost 65, an old ball player, can't run for crap, can barely get both feet off the ground and have the relfexes of a sloth. But I can still shoot, as long as the range is five or six feet inside what it used to be.

So my experiment went like this:

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I realize that many most all of you are not as excited about my next four days as I am, but just ignore me while I blubber along.  As long as I've been a Wildcat fan (since 1953 at least), I've never seen a game live in Rupp Arena.  Thanks to the generosity of a friend (and my incredible luck at having his son's girlfriend fit into my golf rain pants-another story for another day), I have seats in the first row on Tuesday night against Vandy.

Since I'm unable to contain my enthusiasm delerium, I'm gonna drop in a little addendum to this post each day from now through the game night.  I know my faithful readers will be excited to follow Ms Oldcat and myself as we experience the trip.  The days follow after the jump:

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In watching and reviewing last night's game, I believe we were outcoached, outplayed, and outshot.  The first two would not have mattered if we hadn't been beaten in the third area. 

First things first, though.  This year was an unbelievable sequel to last year's fiasco.  This team did not peak in the pre-conference season.  In fact they got better at the end until last night.  I would never have believed that Coach Cal could have forged these talented young players into a cohesive, selfless team that COULD have gone the route.  That they didn't diminishes to only a small degree what has been accomplished to resurrect the program and bring the Wildcats back to the top of the "relevance" pyramid.  Except for the hated Dukies and Coach Tom Izzo's team, is there any probability that the teams that remain, and made headlines in the tourney, will stay at the top?  Little, in my opinion.

Now, to the three Os.  First, we were outcoached.  I don't say that Coach Huggins is a better coach than Cal, but he was last night.  The 1-3-1 kept UK out of its offensive rhythm and the adjustment in the second half to get his (and therefore our) bigs out from under their offensive basket made room for all those cuts, picks, and layups that they scored.  A simple reminder that their ONE point guard was far less effective going right could have saved us at least 10 points.  Overplaying a guard to his strong side is simple, but we failed to execute that last night. 

It is important to note that hitting all those 3s in the first half enabled the drives in the second.  I believe our staff, having adjusted to the barrage of outside shots in the first half, and seeing two early in the second half, was slow to get our guys to drop back inside where they could help on the cuts.  Coach Huggins' move to a 50-60s style offense with cuts and picks to free drives and drop passes was enabled because the Wildcats were trying to stay so tight on the perimeter.

The Mountaineers very high FG% in the second half was because of so many layups, plain and simple.  I don't know what Huggins said, but it probably went like this:  "Whoever is being guarded by Cousins, Orton, or Patterson, get your butt as far away from the lane as you can on our end and pick for our dribblers."  Whatever he said, this is what happened, and it worked.

We were outplayed.  I do not doubt the heart or effort of the 09-10 Wildcats.  In fact, they have been able to dig deep every time but three all year.  It was an amazing record for a bunch of underclassmen, simply amazing.  But, perhaps because of their extreme talent and their experience in AAU ball, some of our players simply do not possess certain skills that were considered basic in years past: pick and roll, defending the pick and roll, inside switches on deep cuts, and weak side help from anyone other than Patterson, Orton, and Cousins.   For example, how many times in the second half did you see John Wall inside and not helping when another defender's man drove to the basket?

One area, of course, in which we definitely were not outplayed was in rebounding.  That is, of course, an "effort" area and we did very well, but because of the third O, we were not able to take advantage of the extra possessions.

Finally, we were outshot.  Now, that is kind of like saying that the sky is blue when it's not cloudy or dark.  But what can be done about it?  Aren't even the best shooting teams going to have cold nights?  Of course.  That is true, and, to a degree, that is what happened last night.  I kept expecting to see a breakout string of threes, but all we came up with until the endgame was bricks.  It can happen, and it now appears that our fears from earlier in the season were somewhat founded, despite some very good efforts along the way.

One area of shooting for which there is no excuse, however, is the free throws.  Seventy-five percent free throws last night would have given us five more points and that would have affected the endgame play to a great degree.    Because some of our poorer FT shooters did not change technique during the year, I would suggest that free throws do not occupy a high rung on the ladder of Coach Cal's priorities.  Given his teams' results in NCAA games previously and last night, I would humbly suggest that that importance be elevated.

In my opinion, free throw shooting is 50% technique, 25% mental focus, and 25% confidence under pressure.  Technique is the easy part, and yet I see a number of our players with bad FT shooting technique.  Poor alignment, straight knees, low arc, poor wrist flex in the pre-release, etc.  Want to see good technique?  Look at some old tape of Kyle Macy.  You don't have to wipe the hands on the socks, and you don't have to bend the knees so much in the pre-shot routine, but the rest of the moves Macy made were textbook.  And those moves are no secret.

The mental focus and confidence under pressure can be trained into players during practice.  There's nothing a player hates after a two-hour practice more than laps and/or wind sprints.  Believe me, with your teammates on the lane and you on the line, there's "game" pressure to make FTs if the result of misses is sprints/laps.  It worked for my unathletic high school team, and it will work for the infinitely more talented Wildcats.  I just don't understand why Wall, Bledsoe, Liggins, etc can't shoot FTs better, and I don't understand why Demarcus Cousins continues to swing the ball into shooting position from the left side of his head.  Is nobody on the staff looking?

Sorry for the venting.  I let myself fill the glass too full, perhaps, with this team.  The way we all "know" these kids made the emotional involvement inevitable, I suppose.  What a fine group of young men.  I haven't heard any really derogatory character-related information about any of them, and there are few teams that can say that, I would guess.

With the season over, I wish all these guys well.  Mark Krebs can now deal with his mother's illness, Ramon can spend more time with his daughter, and the more talented guys on the team can deal with the life-changing decisions about when to make the jump to the next level in their basketball careers.  Regardless of how they choose, they will always be Wildcats, and, for this old guy they will always be my second favorite squad, right behind the Runts.  Godspeed guys.

Now, how many days is it till next season? 

Is it just for the moment we live? . . .are we meant to take more than we give?"

Or is our present point time just an instant in a continuum that extends from somewhere in the past and leads somewhere else in the future?   I know, it's kind of a deep subject for an engineering major, but past the jump are my thoughts on where we've been and the direction we're going, player by player (plus the coach), and as a unit.

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In one of the wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth threads following the loss to USC, there was some disagreement as to how many "shoulda made" inside shots the Cats missed during that game.  I promised Tru that, if I had time, I would go back through the game slowly and get a number.  I did that this morning.  In summary, I found six and one-half crip shots that UK should have made. 

In fairness, I omitted all the inside shots on which the UK player was fouled, but, in truth, I felt some of them should have been made despite the foul.  Putting them into the count, however, gets really messy, since then you have to count the free throws made following the foul, and so forth.

Following the jump is a list of the ones I felt should have been made:

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I don't profess to be the world's greatest basketball mind, nor do I claim to understand in great detail the "modern" game or the DDMO, but it seems to me, watching this UK team all year that there are some things that they have not yet perfected, such as:

• Stuck in the middle-we do not yet have the knack of creating open shots by causing the defense, particularly zones, to contract and expand.  When the ball goes into the middle, even when PPat is the guy there, the defense generally has time to collapse and normally doesn't have to worry about a quick kick-out to an open shooter on the elbows.  It just doesn't happen much, and the result is that, even with Cousins' quick moves and soft hands, we have lots more shots blocked inside than I see other teams having.  Dribbles and fakes take time, and time is the ally of the defense.  I guess we are trying too hard to be like NBA teams where the bigs bump and buck each other inside all the time.
• Moving to the open spot.  When one of the guards starts to drive or Big Cuz gets the ball inside, some of our players stay in their spots glued to the floor instead of moving to open spots for a possible pass.  Now, given the "stuck in the middle" syndrome and the propensity of the guards to force the ball into crowds, this might be understandable, but if you aren't open you certainly aren't going to get that pass.
• Taking the open jumper.  We have two people shooting over 40% threes and four over 37%, even after last night.  Yet, I saw Bledsoe, Miller, and Dodson passing up what appeared to be open threes/long twos when it appeared we had good inside coverage for an offensive rebound.  I don't know if they had been instructed not to shoot or not, but if you're a good shooter, put the darned thing up.  I guess, in summary, I think we have become predictable by going inside too much.  It lets the defense ignore open shooters and focus on the bigs.  Taking a few of those shots will actually help Cuz/Orton/PPat inside.
• Allowing the opposition to shoot.  Now, this is not what it sounds like.  I don't like giving up open shots.  What I mean is that sometimes you have to allow a teammate to defend the shooter and devote your attention to getting the rebound if he misses.  Because we are such a good shot-blocking team, we all-too-often, particularly last night, have had more than one guy going after the shooter.  The put-backs on Downey missed fall-down shots last night got disgusting.
• Finally, bringing intensity on every play.  We did this pretty well against Pelphrey's team, but in most games this year have turned our intensity on and off, depending on whether we felt threatened or not.  Trouble was last night, the opposition didn't just wilt when we decided to play hard the last four minutes or so.  When we turned it up, so did USC.  They won't be the last to do that, so it would behoove our guys to treat every possession like it mattered.

All that said, this team now has the opportunity, with the undefeated monkey off its back, to do some serious work and realize their almost unlimited talent.  If they do, they could move from being very good to being outstanding.

First of all, I have to tell you that I wasn't there for #1000, but I saw #999 and #1003, although I didn't know it at the time.  No, I wasn't drunk and I knew I was in Memorial Coliseum; there just wasn't any mention of it at the time, that I recall.  No big deal.  We were expected to win.  Now, if my math and Jon Scott's site are both correct, here's the way it played out:

Georgia was in Lexington on January 13, 1969.  The Cats had a relatively easy time of it, winning 88-68.  Five days later, they traveled to Knoxville and beat the Volunteers 69-66 for win #1000.  That's right, friends, our landmark win came at the expense of our oldest, if not most virulent, rival.  If that doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, I don't know what would.

Continuing their road trip, UK won #1001 at LSU on Jan 28, #1002 at Alabama on Jan 27, and returned home on February 1 to beat Vanderbilt 103-89 for #1003. 

The starters on that 1969 team were:

- The late Mike Casey-drafted102 in the NBA draft, but didn't play, probably because of the horrible leg injury that delayed his senior year and slowed him to a great degree his last year at UK.  Great guy-a fraternity brother of mine.

-Mike Pratt-undrafted.  Later coached at ECU and is now a color announcer for UK.  Strong as a bull; and also a nice person.

-Phil Argento-drafted in the 10th NBA round.  Did not play in the league.  High school coach in the Cleveland area.  Good guy, but fairly quiet-played on the Kittens with him as he set scoring records.

-Larry Steele-drafted in the 3rd round and played 9 seasons with Portland, averaging 8.2 points and 2.9 rebounds per game. Another super guy.  Sat next to him in a history class.  Funny person with whom I shared class notes.

-Dan Issel (you may have heard of him!!)-Drafted NUMBER 122 OVERALL (you read that correctly) proving that the NBA scouts sometimes have their reports wrong.  Naismith Hall of Fame.  Over 27,000 points in the ABA and NBA combined, averaging over 20 ppg in nine seasons in the NBA after averaging over 25 ppg in six seasons in the ABA.  Another super person-gentle giant off the court-another fraternity brother.

So why was there little/no hoopla over win #1000?  Who knows?  Marketing and sports information functions were far less developed than they are now, and the internet did not exist. 

My purpose in putting out this little bit of information is so Tink and whomever else is going to the Drexel game will be well-equipped with a sense of history-where we've been and where we're going.  Good luck, guys, and yell a little louder for those of us who can't be there.

[Promoted from the FanPosts.  Great stuff in here -- ed.]

I just took a look at the last six minutes or so of yesterday's game against UNC, and it was like a Clint Eastwood movie:  we had the Good, Bad, and Ugly side of this team.

First, the Good:  We won, and our two freshman guards went 7-8 from the free throw line in the last two and a half minutes, Bledsoe's miss on the second of a 1+1 being the only miss.  Also, we kept fighting for rebounds and got several good calls.  Wall's strip/steal was also brilliant as was his ball-handling for the most part.

Now, the Bad: On successive trips down the floor, Wall tried to take over the game, resulting in two turnovers.  First was an ill-advised shot in the lane that got blocked, resulting in a UNC FG.  The second was the charge, also in the lane.  To be fair, he did it on the third trip, too, and got a tripping foul called which resulted in free throws for us.  Also bad was the possession in which we missed two consecutive 3-pointers by Miller and Bledsoe.  Despite the nice percentage we're shooting from beyond the arc, this was one of our worries at the beginning of the year, and, while both were open, squared-up shots, both were missed. 

Still in the Bad category, we got exactly one field goal in the last five minutes (Bledsoe's in-bounds reverse layup), and that won't cut it.  And we were darned lucky that Bledsoe's little ill-advised jump-hook in the lane was knocked out by a Tarheel.

And the Ugly: Our big players were non-existent on offense.  For whatever reason, Patterson seldom touched the ball in crunch time, and when he did, it was way out on the floor.  We depended entirely on our guards and were lucky they got it done.  We also threw the ball around like we didn't want it, Bledsoe's baseline drive-kickout over Wall's head being the ugliest.  Where were the adjustments when UNC was coming back?  Coach Rupp used to say that the coaches play the first three minutes of the second half.  Based on that, I'm not sure Ol' Roy didn't beat Coach Cal a little yesterday.

All in all, I'm incredibly glad to get the win.  It makes 1996, puts us five ahead of UNC, and resulted in THE CALL being made from my Tarheel son to me instead of from me to him. 

But despite all the encouraging signs, I'm still not comfortable with this team.  We didn't react well either to Wall's absence or to UNC's picking up the defensive pressure in the second half.  We took our foot off their throats when we had them down.  Many of these issues are signs of immaturity, so I hope we outgrow them.  But I'm still not comfortable.

We've all been complaining about how many turnovers this year's edition of the Cats have had.  But has it really been bad?  And has it been worse than most years?  I decided to take a look at Jon Scott's site to gather a little data.

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In the aftermath of the UK-UL game, I find myself wondering why it is that players today get so damned specialized?  Is it because they have it drilled into them (not necessarily by their coaches) that they do a certain thing well and someone else does something else well, and never the twain shall meet?  I just don't know.

Here's what I saw today:

-Good college players who can't, or won't, pull up and shoot a mid-range jump shot.  Instead, they drive into traffic, allowing the defense to collapse and double/triple team them, and then put up a "leaner".  Hansbrough can do that leaner, but he shoots from above his head, not waist level.  Our guys don't know how to do that.

-An outstanding outside shooting guard who can't, or won't, help bring the ball down the court.  Is there any doubt that Meeks is faster than Porter?  Can he not dribble the ball at all?  While Porter played an outstanding game today, with the exception of not looking to shoot enough, I was holding my breath as he was working one-on-one with a guy who was quicker than he was.

-A "point" guard who made two nice threes (OK, one was a heave), but repeatedly passed up open shots from right on the arc.  Wasn't Mike recruited as a shooter?  Why won't he look to shoot?

-Perry Stevenson begging with confidence for the ball, then making the three.  Then, he made a decent little jumper from the lane, almost apologetically.  Finally, when left completely open from the free throw line, he looked everywhere and finally, as a last resort, put up a hesitant shot that missed.  The kid can shoot--why isn't he encouraged to shoot more? 

-Only one good, solid screen by UK.  Naturally enough, it was by our MAN among boys, Patrick Patterson, on the left side to free Meeks for a three.  That pick should be shown about 30 times each practice.  Most other attempted picks were half-hearted affairs that resulted in exactly no advantage.  The pick and roll is still good basic basketball.  Why won't players use it?

I guess that last thought is my real problem.  Today's players are indisputably quicker, faster, and better athletes than they were several years ago, but many of them simply don't possess enough of the basic skills to provide the versatility that gives opponents fits.  As much as I love Perry Stevenson and his great effort level, that baseline drive/charge epitomizes what drives me nuts.  Where was the pull-up jumper when he got open?  Same goes for Meeks on the fake/high-step/jumpstop in traffic that he got blocked late in the game.  His first dribble got him open, with two defenders adjusting.  Why not just pull up for the jumper?

Is there a rule that "point" guards can't shoot?  That "shooting" guards can't dribble?  That good defending forwards can't shoot the J?  That nobody can set picks?  There must be, because I just don't see that kind of versatility on our team.  And it breaks my heart, 'cause while they're getting better, they COULD be GOOD.