State-Journal.com - Where do Cats stand?

LEXINGTON - In Saturday's 77-58 drubbing of the once proud Tennessee Volunteers, the Kentucky Wildcats looked like a team that could not only make the NCAA Tournament, but make some noise once there.

The operative word in that sentence may be "Saturday." How the Wildcats will play on Wednesday at South Carolina or this coming Saturday against LSU is a big question mark.

But on this one day, against a Tennessee team that has clearly quit on coach Bruce Pearl, the Wildcats looked pretty darned good on a college basketball landscape in which only North Carolina and maybe Connecticut rate a clear edge on 30 other teams or so.

Whether Kentucky is one of those teams in the NCAA field that will challenge the big boys remains to be seen. The Wildcats improved to 19-8 overall and 8-4 in the SEC with Saturday's victory.

Kentucky probably needs to win at least three of four to close out the regular season, with a home game against Georgia on March 4 and a road tilt at Florida on March 7 rounding out the slate.

I believe if the Wildcats can win their two games THIS week, vs. USC and LSU, they are in the NCAA field.

The Tennessee game offered some very encouraging signs.

Sophomore big man Patrick Patterson returned after missing the previous two games with an ankle injury and contributed 19 points (9 of 12 from the field) and five rebounds.

Junior guard Jodie Meeks was held to 14 points " 40 less than he had Jan. 13 at Tennessee. But the attention Patterson and Meeks received from the Vols opened up a lot for their teammates, and, for once, they took advantage of it.
Freshman swing man Darius Miller, in particular, was outstanding. Miller scored 17 points and didn't miss a shot. He was 6 of 6 from the field, including 3 of 3 from three-point range. He was 2 of 2 at the free throw line added six assists and three rebounds in 26 minutes.

"Darius was great," Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie said. "That's the Darius Miller that we recruited. He's been making strides, and it's great for a guy like him to have a bust-out game like this for what it can do for you for the remainder of the season. I think he's going to be a great player before it's all over. I've always thought that, and it was nice to see him have a really great game today."

"Darius came in with a great attitude and tremendous intensity," Patterson said of Miller. "He played tremendous defense, he was rebounding and he was an offensive threat."

"I think I'm playing with a lot more confidence now," Miller said. "I think I was prepared for a game like this. My coaches and my teammates have helped me a lot with that. I was just trying to come out and play hard and help my team."
Others helped the big two " Patterson and Meeks. Junior guard Michael Porter added nine points and six assists, and maybe most importantly, only turned the ball over two times, in 34 minutes.

Gillispie had Miller bring the ball up the court most of the second half, and not only did Miller handle that responsibility well, but it shows that Porter can be a nice complimentary player when not asked to handle point duties full time.

Junior forwards Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris also had their moments, though neither contributed glittering numbers.

Kentucky had 23 assists against 15 turnovers. That's a ratio Gillispie would probably take every time.

"Twenty-three is a great number," Gillispie said of the assists. "We've never been a selfish team. We've had some really good passes this year but didn't always make the basket, so that (assist totals) can be a deceiving number.
"When the ball goes in the basket, it looks like you really know what you're doing," he added. "When it doesn't " even though you might have run the same play with the same execution " it looks like you don't know what you're doing. Today we guarded well and we made some shots."

The ball went in the basket at a remarkable clip for Kentucky Saturday. The Wildcats made an astonishing 59.6 percent of their shots on 28 of 47 from the field, and they were 14 of 16 at the free throw line.

"It was a great team effort,'' Patterson said. "This just shows that Mike and all of them can score."

Gillispie said the improvement starts with having Patterson back on the court, not only because Patterson is so often a double digit scorer and rebounder, but because of WHERE Patterson's contributions come from.

"Just having a low post presence," Gillispie said when asked how it helps to have a big, relentless force like Patterson on the floor. "He just commands so much respect, and when he got it, he finished very well.

"And I would say he gives our other players a great deal of confidence, too," added Gillispie, who earlier in the season balked at the idea that Patterson and Meeks need help, but now seems to believe it's a swell idea to have balance. "They know that Pat commands a great deal of respect offensively and defensively, and he's another guy in the huddle they can look to when times are tough."

"We had a lot of open looks " me, Mike, Ramon, DeAndre, KG (Kevin Galloway) " when Pat was down there posting hard," Miller said. "They were really keying on him and Jodie like they always do, and that freed up a lot for us."

"If you look at the stat sheet," Pearl noted, "give Ramon Harris, and Porter and Stevenson and obviously Darius Miller the credit. We gave those guys opportunities to make some shots, and they did. We did a good job on Meeks. Defensively, you try to make the other guys beat you, and we did and they did."
The Wildcats were also strong defensively, limiting the Volunteers to just 31.7 percent shooting from the field.

"Our defense today was great until the ball came off the offensive rebound and we got dominated again," said Gillispie, whose team lost the rebounding battle 35-28, including 23-8 on the offensive glass. "I thought our first-shot defense was about as good as you can get until late in the game when they started driving it and we let them drive it a little too easily."

Tennessee had an astonishing FOUR assists (and you thought KENTUCKY had the point guard problems) and 13 turnovers.

It's little wonder all Pearl could do post-game was shake his head and say: "As a head coach, I've never been so embarrassed by how I coached and the way my team played. We didn't play with poise, we didn't play with passion, we had no purpose, and I thought there were times when we quit."

The Wildcats, obviously, have not quit. And now, over the next two weeks, we'll see if that's good enough to give Kentucky a chance at much greater glory in March.