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Patterson's renewed energy helps UK atone for only loss

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LEXINGTON – Kentucky’s sleeping giant, Patrick Patterson, appears to have come alive, and the Wildcats’ hopes for an eighth national championship probably hinge on his recent surge continuing into post season.

The 6-foot-9 Patterson enjoyed one of his finest games as a Wildcat Thursday night against the South Carolina Gamecocks, contributing 23 points, eight rebounds, four blocked shots and two steals in Kentucky’s 82-61 victory at Rupp Arena.

The contest was sweet revenge for UK’s lone defeat of the season, a 66-62 loss at South Carolina on Jan. 26.

The second-ranked Wildcats improved to 27-1 overall and 12-1 in the Southeastern Conference. South Carolina fell to 14-13 and 5-8.

“I am so proud of him,” said UK coach John Calipari, who started working individual sessions with Patterson about a month ago after Patterson had one of his worst games of his career in the loss at Carolina.

“There were three rebounds, if he had gone after the ball with two hands, he would have had a double-double, with four blocks. He is a monster. I am so proud of what he is doing. We needed him to play like this.”

South Carolina coach Darrin Horn chastised the media after the game for being critical of Patterson earlier in the season.

“I don’t know why anybody has ever said anything about him all year long not playing well,” Horn said of Patterson. “Shame on you. Shame on all of you.

“I think Patrick Patterson is terrific,” Horn added. “He’s one of my favorite players in the league and in the country. He does all the little things, and he is tough. I’ve never seen the kid not play hard, ever.”

Well, I have. Patterson himself admitted as much right out of the gate in his postgame meeting with the media.

“I’m just being more active,” Patterson said. “I’m doing whatever coach wants of me, whatever my teammates want me doing out there on the court. I’m just more comfortable, taking my time in the post, and luckily the ball has been dropping for me in the basket.

“My teammates believing in me and just hard work in practice and extra work with coach is starting to pay off.”

“He’s playing a lot more aggressively than he did in the first part of the season,” UK freshman center Daniel Orton said of Patterson. “He’s getting more of his looks, and he’s scoring a lot more.”

Patterson readily admitted his impact when playing like this.

“I think it makes a huge difference, especially when DeMarcus goes out of the game and someone needs to score inside,” Patterson said. “I’ll step up and do that. Daniel is doing a great job as well. I think it definitely helps the team when I’m able to score the ball, whenever I’m rebounding, or just bringing a lot of energy out there. Just doing what the coach wants me to do.”

Patterson’s resurgence is a great sign for Kentucky looking ahead to Saturday’s noon match-up with Tennessee in Knoxville (CBS) and beyond.

What’s even better is that Patterson’s improved production is not coming at any great expense to the numbers of the freshman stars DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall. Cousins added 19 points and 11 rebounds against South Carolina, and Wall had 12 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals and a mildly troubling six turnovers.

Even more promising for Kentucky, perhaps, is that some of the not-ready-for-prime-time players are also showing signs of renewed life, particularly sophomore swing man Darious Miller and Orton.

Miller played with more aggressiveness Thursday than I’ve seen from him this season, adding seven points, eight rebounds, two blocks and an assist against the Gamecocks.

And Orton had six points, five rebounds and two steals in just 14 minutes.

“I thought he was tremendous,” Calipari said of Miller. “And I thought Daniel (Orton) was tremendous, too. We need them and Patrick to play as well as they did. I thought he (Miller) was aggressive. He took good shots. There were no timid shots. Now he just has to keep it up with tough road games in hostile environments.

“Daniel has been working on his free throw shooting,” Calipari added. “We will throw him the ball every time if he is making free throws. I thought he defended and did well. He has big numbers, too.”

All these individual numbers added up to some critical differences in Kentucky’s win Thursday and the earlier loss at South Carolina. Most notably, there was rebounding. The Wildcats outrebounded USC 47-31 Thursday. UK limited Carolina to 11 offensive rebounds.

In the earlier game at Columbia, S.C., the Gamecocks outrebounded the Cats, and had 20 of their rebounds on the offensive end.

“We knew coming into this game the difference would be transitioning and rebounding,” Horn said. “Kentucky is as dominant a team as I’ve ever seen in those two areas combined. We knew that was the key coming in, and that was what we were able to do the first time we played. Tonight we just didn’t do the job we needed to in those areas to give ourselves a chance.”

USC senior guard Devan Downey, the Wildcats’ giant killer in the game at Columbia, led all scorers with 26 points Thursday, but he needed 25 shots to do it, hitting only nine of them.

“I am not worried about stopping one player,” Calipari said when asked about Downey. “I wanted us to make the game hard for him and then go and play their other guys. Downey went 9 for 25. When you take 25 shots, you will make some. We did a pretty good job.”

Kentucky shot 50 percent from the field on 32-for-64, and 15-for-20 at the free throw line. South Carolina was just 38 percent from the field on 26-for-67.

Despite all these glittering numbers, the Wildcats were still plagued by stretches of the game where they appeared to lose concentration and drifted into some sloppiness. Maybe that was why Calipari said near the end of his press conference: “I will be honest, we still did not play great, but we played well enough to win.”

There’s still time for Kentucky to play great. And signs point in that direction.