K-State : First Thoughts (UPDATE: Game is at 9:45 Thursday)

[Pobilly]

South has a 5 KENTUCKY vs a 9 K-State: and an 11 Loyola vs a 7 Nevada. What are your thoughts on the match ups? KState did not have their main scorer today. I would guess he will be back for KENTUCKY. If we show up like the last 2 weeks we should be good in this game. My bet is Nevada loses to Loyola. I guess we will see.

[catfaninin]

K State will try to make it a slow, ugly defensive slugfest. As long as UK can bring the kind of game they have the past month (other than UF) they should be just fine. I don't think K-State has the offense to play with them

Don't sleep on Nevada. That's a pretty darned good team.

[KCKUKFan]

K State will try to make it a slow, ugly defensive slugfest. As long as UK can bring the kind of game they have the past month (other than UF) they should be just fine. I don't think K-State has the offense to play with them

Don't sleep on Nevada. That's a pretty darned good team.

We're Kentucky fans, so we'll worry and fret and wring our hands, but the bottom line is that we have to beat Kansas State and either Loyola Chicago or Nevada to go to the Final Four.

I'm not scared of any of those teams, and you shouldn't be, either.

[catfaninin]

We're Kentucky fans, so we'll worry and fret and wring our hands, but the bottom line is that we have to beat Kansas State and either Loyola Chicago or Nevada to go to the Final Four.

I'm not scared of any of those teams, and you shouldn't be, either.

I'm not scared of them. But I'm not ready to claim a win over any of them yet either.

[Joneslab]

Tip time is 9:45 Thursday night.

[Blue Heaven]

I wonder how many seniors they have because we beat them in the first round four years ago. Judging by today anyways, they seem to want to ugly it up. They have been without their best player though in Dean Wade, who was a First Team All Big 12 selection. I wasn't too impressed with their guards. They can scrap it up enough on defense though to make you uncomfortable. I feel our length and speed can be a problem for them. There is nobody on that team that can stop Shai, IMO. Judging by the way this tournament has gone it will be a tough game but we should be able to pull it out.

[KevinHall]

I don't think any game will be easy. Anybody you play now is playing good basketball and you have to expect them to be a tough out. But this is all laid out perfectly for Kentucky. They play a nine seed and next up would be a 7 or an 11 seed. You have to take advantage of that if you are UK because as we know it usually doesn't happen this way. It should be an Blue crowd in Catlanta. I can't imagine any of those other teams will bring much more than family and a few friends to the games. So the Blue Mist should be heavy this weekend.
Anyone know if that big guy for Kansas State is expect ed back? That could make a big difference in the game if he is back and healthy. I read over the weekend he had a foot injury. Depending on what it is those can be hard to come back from in a short amount of time.
I just watched the 1st half of K-State's game last night. Just the little I saw UK should be able to beat them. Weber's style is to junk up the game and be physical. UK should be ready for that. It seems most teams have tried that all season on them.
The opportunity is there on a platter for UK. They just have to take advantage of it.

[bigbluebob]

I hope K State gets a T called on them before the game starts........remember that?

[Ukfan8]

As long as Ky takes it one game at a time and respects their opponent they'll be fine. After the way things went this weekend everybody should be on alert. Having said that Ky has a final four spot with their name on it if they stay focused

[KevinHall]

Here's a little history of UK playing Kansas State over the years.
UK is 9-0 lifetime against K-State.

First meeting ever was on New Years Day 1940. UK won easily.

They played for a national title in 1951. UK won by ten in that game. By chance does anyone remember that game?

They have play twice in the UKIT finals in the 60's.

UK went to Manhattan, Kansas in the early 70's and won. A fellow by the name of Lon Kruger played for K-State in that game.

UK beat them in the 1976 NIT at MSG. UK won by three in a tight game. K-State had a really good guard tandem that year.

BCG even beat K-State in the 2008 season in the Las Vegas Invitational.

UK beat them in the 1st round of the 2014 NCAA's by seven. UK started that game shooting technical fouls shots because a K-State player was dunking in warmups. Thanks to bigbluebob for reminding me of that. I had almost forgotten about that. Aaron Harrison gave a prelude to his shooting to come in this tournament by scoring 18 and Julius Randle had 19.

http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/statistics/KansasState.html

[TrueblueCATfan]

It is CATlanta.....will be like a home game.....CATS will move on

[Dwight Schrute]

We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves at all here, but Kentucky will likely never have this type of road to the Final Four again. It's just a perfect storm in our favor - here's hoping we can capitalize on it.

[Ukfan8]

All the pressure is on Ky for sure at this point, we'll see how they handle it

[TrueblueCATfan]

ugh..I hate those late games too

[Lighthouse]

None of us like the late games, but most of us will be here excited and doing our very best to pull our CATS through.