What We Learned From ... Kentucky-UNC

2009-03-20T01:03:57-04:00

2008-11-19T00:51:57-05:00

2008-11-19T00:52:34-05:00

2008-11-19T19:21:58-05:00

SportsReality

Jeffersonville 611923

18 J.J. Reddick playing BEHIND Keith Bogans at Orlando...dawg. 3390423

2008-11-19T19:20:28-05:00

razzaqz

Chico 611918

17 Kentucky didn't play as a team yesterday. They are still not cohesive and unsure of themselves. Billy G needs to crack the PG and get the team to work synergistically to get a winning season this time. 3390371

2008-11-19T19:17:32-05:00

SportsReality

Jeffersonville 611923

16 "I do know one thing though. Duke has 14 former players in the NBA this year, more than Kentucky or the tarholes. ' Rajon Rondo, Tayshaun Prince, Nazr Mohammed, Antoine Walker, Derek Anderson...all played at UK in the last 12 years all have NBA championship rings. Let's see the Ex-dookie list of NBA champions from the last 12 years dawg. 3390365

2008-11-19T17:12:17-05:00

HelloKiddo

Charlotte 611702

15 I do know one thing though. Duke has 14 former players in the NBA this year, more than Kentucky or the tarholes. 3389205

2008-11-19T13:26:08-05:00

http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/461/090/thumb/logo_2_sm.jpg 2 IL

CatnChiTown

Chicago 461530

13 I have been a die-hard UK fan for as long as I can remember, and I have my serious doubts as to how the season will play out. Luke's comments, as one mentioned earlier, may be on the kind side. But, if, and this is a big IF, the Cats can get decent point guard play they will be ok. There are some scorers on the team, but if you can't get the ball to them, well, they won't do much. I am hopeful that UK can get on the right track and thankfully have some powder puffs on the schedule (not that VMI was considered much of a threat in my mind, but look what happened there). 3385532

2008-11-19T12:26:53-05:00

http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/184/674/thumb/29airobama533.jpg 31 NY

nyccharlie

Brooklyn 184974

12 Duke is not strong right now. They would lose to Carolina, even without Hansborough and ginyard. When they play this year it will be a sweep by Carolina, probably in the double figures both games. 3384500

2008-11-19T11:49:44-05:00

BauersCodCakes

Shrewsbury 611710

11 "You all are all dorks. Duke would beat both of these teams easily." Umm, you mean the same team that barely got by might Rhode Island at home? Keep dreaming, Einstein. 3383742

2008-11-19T11:19:02-05:00

HelloKiddo

Charlotte 611702

10 You all are all dorks. Duke would beat both of these teams easily. 3383078

2008-11-19T11:07:35-05:00

156

Lex from NorCal

San Francisco 14569

9 With all the games on yesterday, I can't believe this ho-hum match warrants more than a boxscore. Didn't Oklahoma play Davidson in a tight game? 3382800

2008-11-19T10:48:28-05:00

156

arbitrageur

Waco 534071

8 Based on what we've seen from UK so far this year, it's very hard to argue with Luke's assessments. In fact, he may even be kind. This is a lot like last year when UK got off to a slow start and got blasted in a few games (remember the 50+ point loss to Vanderbilt) and yet still put together a good SEC record and made the tournament. Patterson is a stud and I'm guessing that the other guys will learn how to play around him. I'd love to play Kentucky right now, but I'm not so sure I'll feel the same way in about 3 months. 3382543

<div class="photo_container image_right" style="width: 300px;"> <div class="photo"><img src="http://img.fannation.com/upload/si_blog_post_images/sweep.gillespie.getty.jpg" alt="Sweep" width="300" height="400" /></div> <div class="photo_attributes" style="text-align: left;">Darius Miller had no answers for Billy Gillispie against UNC. Kevin Cox/Getty Images</div> </div> Three things we learned from watching No. 1-ranked North Carolina's 77-58 rout of Kentucky on Tuesday night ... 1. Kentucky looks fatally flawed. For Billy Gillispie's sake, I was hoping last week's VMI loss was an aberration, but in the wake of yet another UK flop, we must be realistic: The Wildcats are tantalizingly close to being a decent club -- they have a few elite players in power forward Patrick Patterson, if the ball ever gets in his hands, and shooting guard Jodie Meeks, if he's in an unselfish mood -- but without a serviceable point guard, they're at best an NCAA bubble team. This point-guard problem isn't going to be solved anytime soon. Kentucky's starter at the position, Michael Porter, bless his heart, wouldn't crack the rotation of most teams receiving votes in the Associated Press poll. He was abused by Carolina's Ty Lawson and now has five assists against nine turnovers on the season. Coming into Tuesday's game, Gillispie said, "Michael's not a good enough athlete to be timid. He has to be a guy attacking." Porter didn't attack UNC, and neither did freshman backup DeAndre Liggins, who finished with a deceptively respectable stat line -- seven assists, four turnovers -- but didn't handle the ball in a way that exuded any confidence. There are freshmen capable of running a team from Day 1 -- take a look at UConn's Kemba Walker -- but Liggins is not one of them. He needs some time to acclimate his ballhandling to the pace of elite college basketball. If only Derrick Jasper hadn't <a href="http://unlvrebels.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/jasper_derrick00.html" target="_blank">run off to Vegas</a>, there might be some hope for this team to contend in the SEC. 2. Despite this mess, I can't imagine that Gillispie's job would be in jeopardy this season. UK fans were <a href="http://kentucky.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?SID=888&fid=1383&style=2&tid=120791258&Page=1" target="_blank">rightfully despondent</a> while watching this blowout, and they're turning up the heat on their second-year coach. Losing to the No. 1 team in the nation was completely excusable, but getting outhustled by UNC when its two biggest hustle players, seniors Marcus Ginyard and Tyler Hansbrough were watching the game from the bench, in formalwear? That's inexcusable. All of that said, Gillispie has still put together three straight elite recruiting classes, the latest with beastly big man <a href="http://kentucky.rivals.com/viewprospect.asp?Sport=2&pr_key=51353">Daniel Orton</a>, Rivals.com's third-ranked center in the Class of 2009, as the headliner, and built up some coaching cred for salvaging an NCAA tournament bid out of last season's injury-fest. Gillispie has bought himself some breathing room with the UK brass, even if the Honeymoon period with UK fans is over. Watching Gillispie go through a range of facial expressions in the first half on Tuesday -- from the furrowed brow, to the smirk of disbelief, to the serious scowl -- got me thinking about something that athletic director Mitch Barnhart told the Lexington Herald-Leader on Sunday, when he was asked if Gillispie looked more comfortable in his second year on the job. Barhart said: "He's relaxed -- well, as relaxed as he gets. I see him much more relaxed and understanding what it means. If you are in a new job, especially one of this magnitude -- I don't care whether you are the athletic director, the football coach or the basketball coach -- year one is always hard. Year two, I won't say it gets easier, but you know what it looks like. There is no mystery. Less mystery. You have an opportunity to grow into it and feel more comfortable." Maybe the understanding is there, but the comfort? When Gillispie was most comfortable at Texas A&M, where he built the resume that landed the Kentucky gig, he had arguably the nation's best point guard, Acie Law. Now Gillispie has ... well, you've seen what he has. There is no solace in a 28-turnover, 19-point loss. 3. The player UNC fans should be most excited about? Lanky freshman forward Ed Davis. The storyline coming out of this game will probably be the big-time performance delivered by Deon Thompson (20 points, nine boards) in Hansbrough's absence. Thompson was impressive, but I already had a high opinion of him, and just assumed his low offensive numbers (he averaged 8.4 points last year) were more a result of Hansbrough commanding the bulk of the shot attempts in the post. I was more intrigued by what Davis did, grabbing 10 boards to go with nine points in 23 minutes. That followed up a 14-board, 10-point effort in 22 minutes of the Heels' opener against Penn. When I saw Davis at the Jordan Classic in April, he seemed like too timid of a post player to make up for the loss of Alex Stepheson, but Davis has been highly productive thus far. As opposed to his freshman counterpart Tyler Zeller, who's advanced offensively but struggles to rebound, and won't be needed to score once Psycho T comes back, Davis could be a key role player in a Carolina title run. 24701

Luke Winn

New York 4563