The Good
* De'Aaron Fox down the stretch. After being completely miserable for 35 minutes and getting absolutely nothing to fall, Fox took the game over late and willed us to that win. I hope that's a sign of things to come.
* Dominique Hawkins, again. Hawkins is starting to give us very solid minutes as the back-up point guard/ball guard/designated defender/Swiss Army player. Like everybody else he struggled to guard Georgia's deluge of ball screens yesterday, but he held the line when Fox was out of the game with foul trouble. All you can ask for from your back-up senior guard.
* Derek Willis on the glass. Nobody in blue yesterday was more valuable than Willis. His work on the boards was incredible and Georgia could do nothing to box him off. Maybe his best 20-minute run in a Kentucky uniform given the circumstances of that game and how badly we needed him.
* The foul shooting. After Fox and Monk went to the line and missed four straight, Kentucky caught fire and put together a streak of foul shots that ultimately cinched the W.
The Bad
* Kentucky's inability to take control of the game after Yante Maten went down. I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking that Kentucky may run away and hide after Maten got hurt. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.
* Bad Briscoe. Briscoe was back in frustration mode yesterday, where the game was coming incredibly difficult for him. When he's going bad it's like a kung fu film for him to get anything done. A lot of movement, misdirection, flailing, and just brutal hard work--it's like watching a back trying to shake tacklers loose out of the backfield. He's like a bizarro Monk in a lot of ways: where Monk has an effortless, gliding electricity about him, everything for Briscoe is a battle. He's an essential player for this team because he will attack the ball--none of our other guards will rebound, clearly--but when he's off it's like watching somebody vomit in slow motion.
* De'Aaron Fox's first 35 minutes. About as bad as I've seen him. Could get literally nothing to fall, including two-footers.
The Ugly
* The Cats being baffled at the ball screen. Georgia was running the same thing again and again, and we had no answer for it. I kept waiting for Cal to try something different, but for some reason we guarded it the same way for the final 20 minutes, possession after possession, and Devan Downey...er, JJ Frazier kept hitting shot after shot. You know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting a different result...
* Kentucky's inability to play with Georgia's energy. Kentucky got this one done by sheer talent and because Maten was out. But in the energy game, the Cats got trounced hard. Georgia was flying around, bouncing off the walls, talking smack. For the most part the Cats just took it, and that's exactly the kind of game that could see this team bowing out early in the NCAA Tournament. There are too many gaps on this team for them to not play with maximum energy. It's not an overstatement to say that we were very lucky to win that game.
* The horrendous no-call on the Fox drive in the second half. This has been discussed on Twitter, and when you watch it in slow motion it's shocking. Fox took a blow to the head, the body, the arms...no call.
* De'Aaron Fox down the stretch. After being completely miserable for 35 minutes and getting absolutely nothing to fall, Fox took the game over late and willed us to that win. I hope that's a sign of things to come.
* Dominique Hawkins, again. Hawkins is starting to give us very solid minutes as the back-up point guard/ball guard/designated defender/Swiss Army player. Like everybody else he struggled to guard Georgia's deluge of ball screens yesterday, but he held the line when Fox was out of the game with foul trouble. All you can ask for from your back-up senior guard.
* Derek Willis on the glass. Nobody in blue yesterday was more valuable than Willis. His work on the boards was incredible and Georgia could do nothing to box him off. Maybe his best 20-minute run in a Kentucky uniform given the circumstances of that game and how badly we needed him.
* The foul shooting. After Fox and Monk went to the line and missed four straight, Kentucky caught fire and put together a streak of foul shots that ultimately cinched the W.
The Bad
* Kentucky's inability to take control of the game after Yante Maten went down. I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking that Kentucky may run away and hide after Maten got hurt. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.
* Bad Briscoe. Briscoe was back in frustration mode yesterday, where the game was coming incredibly difficult for him. When he's going bad it's like a kung fu film for him to get anything done. A lot of movement, misdirection, flailing, and just brutal hard work--it's like watching a back trying to shake tacklers loose out of the backfield. He's like a bizarro Monk in a lot of ways: where Monk has an effortless, gliding electricity about him, everything for Briscoe is a battle. He's an essential player for this team because he will attack the ball--none of our other guards will rebound, clearly--but when he's off it's like watching somebody vomit in slow motion.
* De'Aaron Fox's first 35 minutes. About as bad as I've seen him. Could get literally nothing to fall, including two-footers.
The Ugly
* The Cats being baffled at the ball screen. Georgia was running the same thing again and again, and we had no answer for it. I kept waiting for Cal to try something different, but for some reason we guarded it the same way for the final 20 minutes, possession after possession, and Devan Downey...er, JJ Frazier kept hitting shot after shot. You know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting a different result...
* Kentucky's inability to play with Georgia's energy. Kentucky got this one done by sheer talent and because Maten was out. But in the energy game, the Cats got trounced hard. Georgia was flying around, bouncing off the walls, talking smack. For the most part the Cats just took it, and that's exactly the kind of game that could see this team bowing out early in the NCAA Tournament. There are too many gaps on this team for them to not play with maximum energy. It's not an overstatement to say that we were very lucky to win that game.
* The horrendous no-call on the Fox drive in the second half. This has been discussed on Twitter, and when you watch it in slow motion it's shocking. Fox took a blow to the head, the body, the arms...no call.
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