Fire Tubby?

Quote of the game:

Fu*k you
-Rondo to Al Horford

Kentucky couldn’t put it all together today and lost in blowout fashion for the second time to the Florida gators this season. Joakim Noah has completely owned us in both of those games as well. The most success the Cats had today against Noah was when Rondo guarded him. You wouldn’t think that a team with 28 feet 3 inches of center would have to play so much small ball but that’s the way this season has turned out.

In one of the few bright spots, Joe Crawford scored a stealthy 21 points. Patrick couln’t get going today and wasn’t a factor on either end of the court. Up next, Ole Miss on Thursday.

Despite their best efforts to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Kentucky somehow comes away with the win. Even though we shot the lights out in the second half, it felt like we were down 20 the whole time. Why can’t they just get the ball in? It’s very frustrating to watch when they are pushing 4.7 seconds to inbound the ball every time. They also had a 10 second call. I haven’t seen one of those in a while, and Rondo wasn’t even handling the ball.

Speaking of Rondo, it looks like he decided he wanted to play tonight. He had four or five drives to the basket in about a four minute span. He’s pretty impressive in that respect. It seems like he can turn that part of his game on or off at will. Paired with his defensive skills, that has to be why he is listed so high on the draft boards.

It was a big game for Randolph as well. He finally looked like the dominating force he was supposed to be all along. I think he scored 8 or 10 straight points for us during one stretch of the game.

This just wasn’t Ravi Moss’ night though. When Tom Hammond said that Ravi picked up his second foul, I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like he had at least four at that point. I haven’t looked at the stats but he had to have been involved in a minimum of five turnovers.

Brandon Stockton may just be the smartest basketball player on the team. He doesn’t really make any stupid mistakes(see 10 second call above), and he is always hustling(see end of game). This should put to rest any of that NIT talk. Go Cats!

*update* I just realized when I read back through this post I sounded more negative than Tim Woodburn. Sorry about that, but I thought it was just a hard game to watch.

From John Clay’s blog:

Yes, said Tubby Smith, UK’s final shot was designed to go to Sheray Thomas down on the right block. Smith said he thought Thomas would be open because LSU would be keying on other UK players. Smith said he thought Thomas hesitated too much before taking the shot, which went over the rim.

I guess Tubby went with the John Paxon option. I understand the call, if Sheray makes the shot he looks like the hero, and Tubby makes what looks like a fantastic call because all the defensive pressure would be on Patrick/Randolph. That being said, I don’t agree with the call in the least. If Patrick takes the shot and misses you feel like you at least you had one of your better players with the ball in his hands. Patrick has proven in the past he can make the big shot why not give him the ball.

In the end it’s just a missed shot, I understand that. Sheray missing the shot is not what cost us this game. It’s the result of sloppy play coming down the stretch that put the team in that situation.

We gave this one away. Plain and simple. We. Gave. It. Away.

More later.

Thanks to just about each and every Wildcat last night, they were fun to watch for the whole 40 minutes. Now in a tie for second place in the SEC East, UK is in the best possible position that it could have hoped for coming out of the Vandy loss. Tubby has everyone playing together at the right time. Yes it was just Ole Miss, but this is the kind of game we’ve been missing regardless of opponent or their unfortunate situation. Kentucky now controls their own destiny. What more can you ask for?

Picture from ukathletics.com

Quote of the game:

“Thomas is so good on the offensive end”

-Dick Enberg

I really hope that he was referring to his offensive rebounding skills and not his scoring ability.

Patrick Sparks was 6 for 6 from three in the second half. Just a monster game. I’m not sure what the magic number is but even if Patrick has missed five three’s in a row the fans still think his next shot will go in.

**firetubby.com game break** Joakim Noah just fouled out of the Arkansas-Florida game with two and change to go in overtime.

Even when Patrick ball-fakes when completely guarded people are disappointed when he passes up a shot. If you need to kill clock Rondo is the man that needs to be in the game. When he brings the ball up and gets over half court, movement comes to a complete stop. I guess he is still pouting about not starting apparently. Look at the reaction of two of the guys who got benched. Randolph comes off the bench and has a dominating performance inside with a lot of dunks and ends up with a double-double. Rondo conversely has had two of the worst games of his career. I guess some people respond differently when challenged. Great win for the Cats

**Florida just lost in overtime 85-81 to Arkansas.**

Rondo for THREEE! Ahhh, what is he DOING!!! Rondo at the line for a one and one, CLANG clangclangclang, arrrhh. That seems to be the general sentiment lately while watching Rondo play. Anytime Rondo touched the ball there were restless rumblings in the Rupp crowd. I think the misguided three’s, missed free throws, and his apparent need to hold the ball for three to five seconds every time he touches it lately has people frustrated with him. I took some pictures during the game so I thought I would put some up here. The first one is of Rupp in true blue fashion (not to rip off WLEX or anything). The full size version makes a pretty good desktop wallpaper. The angle isn’t the greatest but hey, until someone wants to give me some center court seats that’s as good as it’s going to get.

Apparently either Rondo got upset over not starting or maybe he just had an off night, but from what some of the callers were saying the day after the game on 1300 WLXG’s The Sport’s Huddle they thought it looked as if Rondo was possibly on a shooting strike. It didn’t feel like that to me at the game but who knows what on his mind. I happened to take a picture of the UK bench in the 2^nd half and it shows Rondo as the only player sitting on the bench when the rest of the team is standing up and involved in the game. (besides Woo who had just came out of the game for a rest). Is that a sign of more Rondo frustration or just coincidence? I’ll post the picture tomorrow and you can let me know what you think.