Lexington, Ky has Rupp Arena the first 30 min of the game
If game is close with 10 or less minutes to play- name changes to Corrupt
Arena
That fact has been true in the SEC for many years

Just follow the narrative....

Fantastic first half but I knew we were in trouble since it was so close and we played so well. Getting dominated on the boards like that isn't going to work when we're not hitting 3s.

Roderick still asleep. Not much from Lundo. Sears came up empty. Carter was decent and BVP played well. Effort was there. Boals said fatigue was a factor in the 2H.

Bobcats should be fine. Kentucky is top 15 talent in country. Bobcats got a taste of what a first round ncaa tournament game would be like. They hung around but come March they ready to win. Kentucky saw Ohio is an dangerous team. No team will want to draw us in first round.

Mark it down. November is the earliest to ever see this line. Congratulations on that, it must be a record,

I hear ya, but if Oscar played 35 minutes last night he would’ve grabbed 28 rebounds by himself.

Wow, how many steals did we have? And how few turnovers we had!

A turnover, a couple of missed shots and bang, you can be down 10 in a heartbeat.

Long rebounds were energy killers getting new shot clocks on several KY possessions.

They beat OUr guys with numerous mid range jumpers from the elbow or the baseline. The three was pretty well defended. Can our remaining opponents knock down 16 footers that might be open when the three is well defended? OUr bench will play better vs these remaining opponents because they won't see the 4th-8th man be big time division one talent.

The final should have been a 9-14 point loss if we hadn't gone stone cold shooting. I think that is a very good showing on the road in front of a hostile crowd vs a "Blueblood" program with a top tier coach.

I thought the Bobcats played well. We are just too short handed in low post rebounding right now. We will do better once we get IJ back and, hopefully Dwight will be able to help after the New Year. We will have another similar test with LSU soon enough. Let’s see if we can improve in SEC matchup number 2…

GO BOBCATS!

Phew, I'm just overjoyed that you have decided not to bail on this team after losing to Kentucky at Rupp. Phew.

Didn't realize you were hoping for a full breakdown:

"We hit 3s in the first half and didn't in the 2nd."

Yes, including some ridiculous threes by Ben that aren't always going to go down. In the second half we just didn't make shots period.

"Carter and BVP played as well as can be expected IMO. They can hang with that team. Sears "can" but looked like a Sophomore playing big minutes against a top 15 team for the first time in his career on some of those drives (because that's exactly what he is). He's got to learn a floater (ala Preston) or be able to hit a pull up jumper from the foul line, because his first step is deadly. He also needs to learn to finish at the rim through contact (easier said than done against length like UK) but 2-11 from the field isn't going to cut it from our top scorer."

BVP played an excellent first half, second not so much. Thought Jason might have down a better job in second half putting a body on Tshiebwe on some of those rebounds, even to just disrupt him a bit, he was getting to the ball too easily. I think Sears showed last year that he's an excellent finisher through contact, you're right Kentucky's length (and athleticism) bothered him I think but he also just did not have a good game shooting the ball.


"The game was 48-48 with 13 and change to play. We scored 11 freaking points in the final 13+ minutes. And like I said, 6 of those were from Clayton. You trying to tell me we could only score 5 points in 13 MINUTES minus Clayton?? Yeesh."

We missed open shots. Repeatedly. We knew coming in we would have to shoot well from three to be in this game. We didn't. And many of those were wide open.

"For as well as we played for 30 minutes, it's disheartening to end up blown out by 18. And it could have been 25. UK turned on the D, got their big back in the game, and we just shriveled like a frightened turtle."

Sorry, didn't see the shriveled frightened turtles. The shriveled frightened turtles I know turn the ball over. We took care of the ball. We missed shots and didn't get rebounds and they got defensive and offensive rebounds and made mid-range shots. Repeatedly.

"Inexplicably, down the stretch, we just REFUSED to drive to the paint and try to finish or draw fouls. I don't know if Tshiebwe's presence got into their heads and they were worried about getting their shot rejected, or they lost confidence from being frustrated (Sears) or what. But we just stopped. I think UK had 1 or 2 team fouls in the entire 2nd half. We full out stopped being aggressive on O. We set screens. We move without the ball. We share the ball well. All good things, but sometimes you have to do more than settle for hoisting 3s, even if they're good looks."

I think this is good analysis except for starting with inexplicably. We were definitely bothered by their length and athleticism and that made penetration extremely difficult. We are a team that is going to shoot a lot of threes and this game was no different. In the first half we made an acceptable number, in the second half we didn't and we couldn't keep them off the boards. We knew we would have to shoot well to be in this game.

"Tommy Schmock? Kid should be a walk-on. I mean that's essentially what he is. Walk-ons don't belong on the floor against top 15 teams. He looked WILDLY out of his league in all facets. In fact I cringed every time he checked in or touched the ball. I said it before and I'll say it again - this ain't Capital University. Welcome to big boy D1 basketball."

I diagree. I like this pick up by Boals. Yes, playing Kentucky at Rupp is a whole new ballgame. He missed two wide open threes, good shots I am confident he can hit. Roderick missed his also, but I expect them both to keep shooting and when their shots are going in different tunes will be sung in my opinion. He is an experienced backup to give Sears a breather, Sears will be running the show..

But all in all - our 3 PT shooting and BVP/Carter combo kept us in it for awhile. We only had 5 turnovers. That's TREMENDOUS against UK's pressure and length.

First half three point shooting kept us in it. I agree on the rest.


"Look, I get it. UK is bigger, stronger, faster. We weren't going to out-rebound them. They're one of the best rebounding teams in the country. We weren't likely even going to be within 5 or 10 on total rebounds. But 53 to 17? You can't get out-rebounded 5 to 1 and not expect to get blown out of the gym. Honestly I think this is where we missed Preston's length and 6'4 size. How many times did our bigs box out well, only for a long rebound to land in the hands of one of UK's wings or guards? This is a problem when you go 6'1 (Sears) 6'1 (Brown) and 6'5 (but plays smaller Roderick) across the back."

I agree rebounding was the difference, but I don't see Preston making much of a difference. Our bigs were not putting bodies on bodies in the paint. The difference is big, but 53-17 isn't 4 to 1 let alone 5 to 1. Much closer to 3 to 1, still a big difference, no need to exaggerate.

"I said it last year after Creighton and I'll say it again after UK - the BIGGEST need on this team is a long/athletic 3 and D wing. Somebody in the 6'5-6'7 range with length. We have absolutely nobody on our roster that fits that, and didn't address it - and come tourney time these types of teams are taking advantage of it. Maybe not in the MAC, but I think our aspirations are/should be bigger than that.

Maybe DW3 makes a difference in a game like this come March. I sure hope so, because if not - we're in a world of hurt until we figure out a way to fix our rebounding and ability to guard bigger wings."

Fine, but it is November and I'd love to see talk about Mount St. Mary's, Concordia and LSU rather than speculating about March.

"I'm not bailing on this team. Coach Boals will coach em up. Hopefully guys get healthy. This team will be a really good MAC team. Question is, can they make the jump to being a good NCAA tourney team? We're light years from that right now. Last night proved that. The "at large" and "Top 25 vote" talk should be put to rest. We've got 3 months to figure it out."

Again, glad you're not bailing. But I found that comment the most ridiculous thing in your post so that's why I choose it. It's November. Go Cats.

Agreed on this. GraffZ06 offered up some good analysis.

Observations

-Pretty happy with Sears against a better UK team than they have presented for a few years. Controlled, pace, got down the lane without fear, still showed he has improvement to get to but their pressure is pretty intense. He's fine.

-Clayton has a really quick release. Looked like he is not quite ready to be getting big minutes vs big time opponents but flashes of skills and shooting prowess on display.

-I am not sure what JAG means (unless Catherine Bell is involved) but I agree those 2 need to be able to handle the ball and score if Sears is to get any rest. Not thinking Sears has DJ Cooper play all day chops.

-The difference between the MAC is Elite programs is Depth. Even with only 9 players available on the UK bench they were still deeper than Ohio at every position. By a mile. Ohio played well the first half and having the showcase player not defending the middle was everything they could have hoped for when drawing up a game plan. When legs get tired and home court kicks in (my friend thinks there is something about the rims on the other end since UK couldn't score the first half and Ohio couldn't get shots to drop the second) with crowd and the Rupp effect on visiting teams the wheels are going to come off.

Rebounding was going to be an issue as there is a difference in the athletes and wingspans. Ohio is actually the taller team according to KenPom at 76.7 vs 76.5 and both are down in the mid 200s as far as height and both are below the NCAA D-1 average, but those guys going to the rack at UK have lots of bounce and really big wingspans as well as superior quickness and speed. So "FIFTY THREE to MF 17!!!" is not surprising in the bigger picture. It would be interesting to see rebounds broken down by half and see how much of a difference the big in the middle made as opposed to when Brooks was playing the center spot.

I like where they are and do not find this to be as disheartening as the Kansas games over the years. Part of the challenge is to take away the lesson and get better. We will see.

That's an interesting question. I remember looking at the screen at halftime and the rebounding was bad but didn't remember exactly what it was. So I went back through the PBP and counted. I could be off by one or something but I came up with:

First half: UK 26, OU 11
Second half: UK 27, OU 6

Some interesting notes on that. With 10:54 to go in 1st half and OU leading 22-14, the rebounding number was UK 10, OU 9.

We were out-rebounded 43-8 the rest of the way. That's almost unbelievable.

At that point in the first half we brought in the bench. UK promptly went on a 14-3 run taking a 28-25 lead to the 6 minute mark. In those 5 minutes they out-rebounded us 10-1 and our only rebound was a dead ball rebound.

Oddly to start the second half we tied them on rebounds 3-3 for the first 3 and a half minutes when we were up 44-42. They out-rebounded us 24-3 from there.