The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Alabama Edition

[Joneslab]

The Good

* Isaiah Briscoe. Your leaders have to step up in tough games, and Briscoe did. Took the game over when it got close.

* Hello Bam. Bam missed a couple of easy ones, but I thought he played with great energy. The only thing holding him back from maybe his best game of the season was his inability to stay on the court because of fouls.

* Dominique Hawkins' first half. The Hawk gave us great energy off the bench and was instrumental in pushing the lead out. Like Bam, however, he couldn't play extended minutes without drawing whistles.

* Derek Willis' second half. Willis hit two of the game's biggest shots and really came out of nowhere after Wenyen Gabriel was starting to look like he was getting some separation in this platoon.

* The win. Had to have a win in this game to keep pace at the top of the SEC. Now we have Tennessee coming to Rupp for a revenge game which should give us some needed energy.

* Kentucky as a 3 seed in the brackets released earlier today. That's a good sign, especially with Florida at home looming ahead to give us maybe another quality win. I thought we would probably be a 4...which is disappointing if you think about it considering it was just last week that we had a real shot at a 1.

The Bad

* The second half defense, again. 58% shooting for Alabama. Also: 5 blocks in the first half, only 1 in the second. Some of this was the fact that we couldn't actually guard without drawing a whistle, but Bama started to just drive it every time--see LSU, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee Mississippi St., and Vandy. If De'Aaron Fox going end to end and Malik Monk playing loose was the motif for the first 15 games, the second part of the season has bee a straight line drive and lay-up for the bad guys.

* Briscoe from the free throw line. As good as he was down the stretch and rebounding the ball, he reverted to Freshman Briscoe from the stripe.

* I had flashbacks of Kansas when Bama went to the zone. We really struggled to do much against it, mainly because...

The Ugly

* ...De'Aaron Fox had one of his worst games. He just couldn't get anything to work, from that floater to easy plays that he was making with regularity early. I think it's become clear by this point that when the game is ugly and slow, Fox is going to be uncomfortable.

* Alabama from the free throw line. Gracious. You can watch hundreds of games and not see a team clank shots like that. Generally you have to go down to the high school JV level to see that sort of atrocity.

* The fouls. Hard defense was really difficult to achieve today, as any gesture toward aggression was a whistle. Humphries, Bam, Gabriel, and Hawkins all were victimized by strange calls, and it got to the point where the best play was just to stand there. Games like that are hellaciously annoying, mostly because they're brutal to watch, but also because they set up bad habits down the road where guys are afraid to do much of anything defensively.

[BJD]

Without Briscoe today we wouldn't have needed his heroics late. He is a ball stopper on offense. He is a terrible passer. He got one assit on a terrible pass today to Bam soley because Bam was able to corral it and lay it in. Any other player and that was a turnover. Briscoe walked on the first basket of the second half and it wasn't called. So he walks on the next possession to make sure they saw it.

But it was a bad call on stepping on the end line.

We would be a far better team if Briscoe sits.Yes he had 11 points. But he took 17 shots including free throws to get those 11.

They only out rebounded us by 4. That's good. Especially with as much time as Bam had to sit.

27 fouls called on UK to 20 called on Bama. So the more physical team fouled less?

Typical SEC called game. Make up calls left and right. Surprised we didn't see a double technical. They love to call those.

[BobS]

Agree with it all.

Will add ugly.....SEC refs.

[Joneslab]

Without Briscoe today we wouldn't have needed his heroics late. He is a ball stopper on offense. He is a terrible passer. He got one assit on a terrible pass today to Bam soley because Bam was able to corral it and lay it in. Any other player and that was a turnover.

I didn't think that was a bad pass. Looked like he just put the ball ahead there. That's easy basketball.

Also not quite sure where you get 17 shots. Briscoe had 11 field goal attempts. Adding in free throws, I guess.

I totally disagree that the team is better without him. First I'm not sure who plays for him, and second you're not going to find a lot of guys who will fight for balls like he does. I think in a game like today's he made up for the 4 turnovers by the way he got on the glass.

That stuff matters, especially when we're in such colossal foul trouble.

[KCKUKFan]

Without Briscoe today we wouldn't have needed his heroics late. He is a ball stopper on offense. He is a terrible passer. He got one assit on a terrible pass today to Bam soley because Bam was able to corral it and lay it in. Any other player and that was a turnover. Briscoe walked on the first basket of the second half and it wasn't called. So he walks on the next possession to make sure they saw it.

But it was a bad call on stepping on the end line.

We would be a far better team if Briscoe sits.Yes he had 11 points. But he took 17 shots including free throws to get those 11.

They only out rebounded us by 4. That's good. Especially with as much time as Bam had to sit.

27 fouls called on UK to 20 called on Bama. So the more physical team fouled less?

Typical SEC called game. Make up calls left and right. Surprised we didn't see a double technical. They love to call those.

We out-rebounded them by three, 41-38. Not sure what stats you were looking at.

And Briscoe did what we needed him to do: his game was far from perfect, but when we needed a leader in the last five minutes, he was a great one.

[Jeff ROCKober]

Without Briscoe the team loses today. He shot free throws much like Bam today. Pathetic on the line. But UK loses without him despite his missed layups. The guy is a pit bull!

[BJD]

We out-rebounded them by three, 41-38. Not sure what stats you were looking at.

And Briscoe did what we needed him to do: his game was far from perfect, but when we needed a leader in the last five minutes, he was a great one.

You are correct. The box score I saw had them with 38 and us with 34. Obviously that one was wrong.

ASs for Briscoe, I will just disagree. without him on the court we wouldn't have needed his heroics late in the game. He is the one that caused us to struggle on offense. But he always does. Briscoe has developed into a much better college player than I ever thought he would. But he is completely wrong for this team.

He's an Izzo type now.

[Jeff ROCKober]

This team lacks toughness. Briscoe is one that does not lack the toughness. This team would be more of a paper weight without him.

[justford]

To the ugly I would add the box score for both teams. Ugly may be to kind to describe it.

[Lighthouse]

The Good

* The fouls. Hard defense was really difficult to achieve today, as any gesture toward aggression was a whistle. Humphries, Bam, Gabriel, and Hawkins all were victimized by strange calls, and it got to the point where the best play was just to stand there. Games like that are hellaciously annoying, mostly because they're brutal to watch, but also because they set up bad habits down the road where guys are afraid to do much of anything defensively.

I agree with all your take on the game today, except the above. IF, we could ever sit down together and watch the replay, using slow motion and frame by frame, I truly think you would change your consistent thoughts on Officials. Of course if the above is how you like to look at a game, it will never happen. These officials today certainly were not perfect, but they also weren't as bad as you describe either.

[Jeff ROCKober]

You are correct. The box score I saw had them with 38 and us with 34. Obviously that one was wrong.

ASs for Briscoe, I will just disagree. without him on the court we wouldn't have needed his heroics late in the game. He is the one that caused us to struggle on offense. But he always does. Briscoe has developed into a much better college player than I ever thought he would. But he is completely wrong for this team.

He's an Izzo type now.

Briscoe had over a third of the rebounds. 10 defensive boards. Yes he had crappiness but put on some realistic glasses and see the whole game. CATS go down without that effort. Period.

[BobS]

Briscoe was a stud today. We don't win without him.

Nobody played good on offense. But Briscoe made great plays when we needed them.

[Blue Heaven]

I actually saw Monk trying to play some defense today. He tried to take a charge and that's a step in the right direction. I thought our 1st half defense was really good against a Bama squad that had sorta been finding their way. The guys had some great defensive plays that don't show up in box scores in that 1st half. The 2nd half? They fell back into bad habits. When opposing teams get in a groove, this team is unable to squash it for whatever reason. I don't believe I have seen freakish athletes play such bad defense. With all that said, I feel we will find our groove in March once we get away from these SEC refs.

[KCKUKFan]

Monk also logged two (count 'em) TWO rebounds.

Gotta start somewhere.

[Westtncat]

Tough win on the road, at this point with all we have seen, Im simply just happy with it.