The Incredible, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly: Va. Tech Edition

[Joneslab]

The Incredible

* Quade's glasses. Far out, baby.

The Good

* Very good win against a vet-heavy, high-octane, well-coached team. That's a win that will earn us some clout on Selection Sunday.

* 93 points. The offense has been tremendous recently. Since the Fort Wayne game on November 22nd, Kentucky has averaged more than 90 a game. Very solid for a young team.

* Clutch in winning time. Kentucky got winning plays out of a few guys in this game, including some tremendous play by Quade. But the dagger three by Hami in the corner was sweet.

* Knox early in the second half. Went through a run for about five minutes where he showed that he is a bona fide lottery pick.

* 11-22 from three as a team. Raise your hand if you thought that would happen for this UK team at any point this season. *nobody raises hand*

* Speaking of threes: Hami 4-7 from three. That's insane and I still don't believe it happened.

* Speaking of Hami: don't let anybody tell you that Hami Diallo has been a disappointment. If they tell you that they don't know the game. This guy is a high-level player. He's a pro. Period.

* 11 turnovers. After a rough first three minutes Kentucky really did a great job of taking care of the ball. Maybe the best thing to come out of this game. If we don't cough it up good things usually happen for this team.

The Bad

* Dickie V. screaming to get the ball inside as we drilled three after three. He isn't wrong...but clearly the gameplan was to beat Virginia Tech at the game they were giving us.

* Last four minutes of the first half. We were in control of the game...and then we weren't. We saw a 6-point lead turn into an 8-point deficit in just a few possessions. Those are the movements that will get us beat on the road in the SEC.

* Not Sacha Killeya-Jones' finest hour. Seemed to be treading water every time he checked in today.

The Ugly

* Defense. As in: not much of it. We were so concerned about the three-point shooting that we allowed a deluge of easy crip shots. At one point in this game Virginia Tech was essentially running a lay-up line. Just easy shot after easy shot.

[Lighthouse]

Great insight and report Will. Were you at the game?

[Jload]

Diallo was awesome. I said early on that this team would go as far as he could take them, I think I got it right for once. Also all you Green haters on here care to chime in and look like fools.

[Joneslab]

Great insight and report Will. Were you at the game?

Was not. I actually had to tape this one and watch later as my son had wall to wall Catholic league basketball today. (Go Leopards.) We were in a gym from 10:00 this morning until literally 20 minutes ago.

[KCKUKFan]

A lot of the layup line defense in the first half reminded me of Kansas at Rupp last year. Otherwise, the game was great. That second half had some magic.

Hami Diallo and Quade Green were absolutely fantastic. And PJ Washington continued his improvement with another very solid game. That last two-handed rebound that locked the game made me want to stand up and clap.

[teamchemistry15]

A lot of the layup line defense in the first half reminded me of Kansas at Rupp last year. Otherwise, the game was great. That second half had some absolutely magic.

Hami Diallo and Quade Green were absolutely fantastic. And PJ Washington continued his improvement with another very solid game. That last two-handed rebound that locked the game made me want to stand up and clap.

If we could get PJ to stop flexing everytime he does something good and get him to hustle back down the court he might really turn into something.

[KevinHall]

Good overall game. Diallo has been improving by leaps and bounds. He will still throw up some bad shots but he is learning to fit in with the offense and his shooting is getting much better. If UK can shoot remotely close to today they have a real shot at the Final Four. But I do think Va Tech's defense was pretty bad. But UK knocked down the open jumpers so that is a step in the right direction.
Good sign that when things went bad they d didn't seem to panic,hung in there and got back on tack in the 2nd half. Being at home helped that but still we have seen teams in the past fold up. I thins team is developing some good toughness. We may not see how much though until they play a true road game.
Green needs to wear those shades all season. Just looked too good not to.
Next two games will be even tougher. UCLA and UL are better than VPI. We will find out a whole lot more after those two about this UK team.
The win today will come in handy at selection and seeding time. VPI should be a top 50 team and will do well in the ACC.

[UK8STL11]

Didn’t get to see the entire game so re-watched it today.

A few thoughts-

Green, Hami, and Knox were awesome, especially Diallo’s shooting
Washington was scrapping but was horrendous on defense until the late block he had
Gabriel is useless. Biggest disappointment of the season so far. Cats were up 82-74 and about to win by 10+ until Gabriel tried to give it away
3 point defense was really bad the first half, better the second half. But a team with the length of UK shouldn’t struggle that much
Turmovers early were a mess. 5 in first 3:00 and then 6 total the rest of the game. Was great to see them clean it up.
Nice to see this team able to score in the 90s. VT is a terrible defensive team but our ability to score like that is great to see. I think this team can win a low scoring, ugly game and can win like yesterday. Bodes well for later this season.

Overall, really strong game. Especially the second half. But, the VT slob fest I’m seeing from some on Twitter and other message boards is silly. They are a solid team but nothing special. Probably an 8-9 seed in the tourney. Some are acting like we beat the 2012 UK team yesterday.

Happy to see the growth and some really solid play from some guys. Seems like they are heading in the right direction.

[Blue Heaven]

If we could get PJ to stop flexing everytime he does something good and get him to hustle back down the court he might really turn into something.

My schedule has prevented me from watching the Cats a lot this year, but I have watched enough to see that this really irks me. The flexing may have worked in High School but not this level. Grow up young man.

[catfaninin]

Didn’t get to see the entire game so re-watched it today.

A few thoughts-

Green, Hami, and Knox were awesome, especially Diallo’s shooting
Washington was scrapping but was horrendous on defense until the late block he had
Gabriel is useless. Biggest disappointment of the season so far. Cats were up 82-74 and about to win by 10+ until Gabriel tried to give it away
3 point defense was really bad the first half, better the second half. But a team with the length of UK shouldn’t struggle that much
Turmovers early were a mess. 5 in first 3:00 and then 6 total the rest of the game. Was great to see them clean it up.
Nice to see this team able to score in the 90s. VT is a terrible defensive team but our ability to score like that is great to see. I think this team can win a low scoring, ugly game and can win like yesterday. Bodes well for later this season.

Overall, really strong game. Especially the second half. But, the VT slob fest I’m seeing from some on Twitter and other message boards is silly. They are a solid team but nothing special. Probably an 8-9 seed in the tourney. Some are acting like we beat the 2012 UK team yesterday.

Happy to see the growth and some really solid play from some guys. Seems like they are heading in the right direction.

Gabriel played 21 minutes and had 9 rebounds, which lead the team . To say he is "useless" is beyond stupid.

[teamchemistry15]

Gabriel played 21 minutes and had 9 rebounds, which lead the team . To say he is "useless" is beyond stupid.

Took the words right off my finger tips.

[teamchemistry15]

I think the most impressive thing is we did it with seven guys. SKJ came in for a handful of minutes and I don't think did anything on the stat sheet, so we got all of our production with seven. With SKJ getting healthy and Vanderbilt getting close it will be interesting to see how the rotation plays out. Will Cal play nine guys?

[Westtncat]

How is VT unranked? They are a very good team.

[KevinHall]

Gabriel played 21 minutes and had 9 rebounds, which lead the team . To say he is "useless" is beyond stupid.

I thought he had a pretty good game, Saturday. But I'm not crazzed either. I would take that from Gabriel every game this season and not think twice about it.

[Joneslab]

How is VT unranked? They are a very good team.

I wondered that myself.

They really hadn't beaten anyone, but they did crush Washington (who beat Kansas, showing that comparing scores in college basketball is always idiotic). Also beat Ole Miss (who has shown that they're not very good) and Iowa (ditto).

But their offensive numbers show that they're probably a top 25-ish team. Definitely look like an NCAA Tournament team, but that defense is going to get them rocked a couple of times in ACC play.