Tennessee game will test Cats' mental focus

UK Notebook: Tennessee game will test Cats' mental focus
By LARRY VAUGHT
larry@amnews.com
February 26, 2010

LEXINGTON — Kentucky has won eight straight games to improve its record to 27-1 and needs only one more win to secure no worse than a tie for its 44th Southeastern Conference championship.

“This is kind of like the dog days of the season,” said UK coach John Calipari after Thursday’s 82-61 win over South Carolina. “We had four games left. Let’s get this one. You are playing for the seed (in the NCAA Tournament).

“We are not the only team ready to get on what that other tournament, and I am not talking about the one in Nashville (Southeastern Conference Tournament). It’s a grind right now.”

The grind will resume quickly, too, as UK will play at Tennessee Saturday at noon. The Volunteers lost at Florida Tuesday.

“The other team played Tuesday. They are up there waiting for us,” Calipari said. “We will be in bed by 1, go to class, do whatever we can and travel and play a noon game on Saturday. We will see exactly what we have in the tank up there.”

The Cats insisted they will have plenty left in the tank for Tennessee.

“I actually don’t think we are that tired or worn down,” freshman Daniel Orton said. “We have plenty of time to recover. We practice every day any way. We just have to focus on what the coaches tell us and go play.”

Junior Patrick Patterson said the game will test UK’s mental focus.

“It’s just a matter of concentration and focusing on what you have to do. We’ve played them once, so we should know what to expect,” Patterson said.

South Carolina coach Darrin Horn was impressed by Kentucky.

“They are better without question (than the first time the teams played),” Horn said. “Their individuals have improved. They have a better understanding. We changed defenses and they handled it. They have a lot of new guys, but they have got better. They play hard and well together.

“You aren't going to take everything away, so that is why the key still comes down to transition defense and rebounding, in my opinion, against Kentucky. Those two things are the keys to playing them.”

Kentucky had 56 points in the paint while South Carolina had 30. The Cats got almost all of their points inside the second half.

We stopped them in transition and that was probably the main thing we were looking for. But they killed us inside,” South Carolina’s Lakeem Jackson said. “Patrick Patterson and DeMarcus Cousins are big, tough guys. If you are going to beat Kentucky, you have to have a way to handle them and we didn’t.”

Calipari said the plan against South Carolina was to go inside as much as possible the second half.

“We were trying to post it every single time down the court. That is what we wanted to do. We thought we could get to the rim. We tried to open up the lane a little bit,” Calipari said. “When Eric Bledsoe went back in and played at a different pace you saw they player we need to have.

“I tried to make a point that if you miss a shot, we are a great rebounding team; we will go get the ball. I wanted to see if we had improved. I will be honest. We still did not play great but we played well enough to win. South Carolina played hard. They played the way they had to play they just did not make the shots they made in South Carolina. We also played better offensively today.”

Stopping Downey: Devan Downey had 30 points on 9-for-29 shooting in South Carolina’s win over Kentucky. He was 9-for-25 from the field Thursday and had 25 points.

“South Carolina shot 38 percent from the floor, they shot 20 percent from the 3 and we outrebounded them by 16. We are happy,” Calipari said. “I am not worried about stopping one player. I wanted us to make the game hard for him and then go and play their other guys.

“Downey went 9-for-25. When you take 25 shots you will make some. We did a pretty good job. We were much better at pick and rolls because our big guys were up higher. We also brought Patrick (Patterson) up front instead of our five (center) at times. We also rebounded with the guards. We make it hard on other teams to score when we do that.”

http://www.amnews.com/stories/2010/02/26/uks.169481.sto