COLUMN: On-court midterms approach as finals loom in classroom

RELATED STORY: game recap

As members of the UK men’s basketball team settles down to take their finals in the classroom this week, they should be glad the final exam on the court is still several months away.

You would have to forgive the crowd at Rupp Arena Saturday for thinking UK’s game against Indiana would be different from the Cats’ early-season struggles. You would have to forgive them for thinking UK was going to build a large lead early and never look back.

The Cats followed through on the first part of that promise by scoring the first 14 points of the game and hitting 10 of their first 11 shots on the afternoon, but UK outscored IU by only four points the rest of the way.

“Let’s get a 26-point lead and shoot 15-of-45 every time we can,” UK head coach Billy Gillispie said after UK’s 72-54 victory Saturday.

Gillispie has a point: A win is a win, but for some reason, Saturday’s game felt like a letdown.

This was a rivalry game against a wounded opponent. Indiana featured only one player on its roster that saw action in their 70-51 victory over UK last season. That one player, senior Kyle Taber, played one minute in last season’s contest and scored only four points Saturday.

For the third consecutive season, the UK-IU matchup was held at one team’s home arena after being played at a neutral site for 15 consecutive seasons. The Rupp Arena crowd capitalized on the home court advantage.

UK jumped out to a 14-0 lead behind a raucous crowd that showed no signs of underestimating the Hoosiers. When IU finally scored its first points with 13:35 left in the first half, Cats junior Jodie Meeks immediately answered with a 3-pointer.

Just as UK seemed well on its way to exploiting an undermanned Indiana team, a funny thing happened on the way to the post-game party. For old times’ sake, the Cats started turning the ball over.

“We had too many turnovers,” Gillispie said. “We started getting a little bit soft with the ball.”

While UK will take an 18-point victory against a heated rival, the team missed an opportunity to make a serious statement by putting together 40 minutes of the stifling defense they showed in the opening 10.
UK turned the ball over 23 times in the game – the fifth game this season that UK has committed at least 20 turnovers. Indiana scored 12 points off 12 UK second-half turnovers and outscored the Cats 41-36 after the break.

“It’s early, just the second week of December,” Meeks said. “We just have to work on that.”

He’s right. While UK’s players and the rest of UK’s students will take their final exams this week, the Cats are barely ready for their midterms on the court. Even if UK’s victory Saturday left a sour taste in your mouth, it was still an 18-point victory. I’m sure a few students out there had some poor grades at midterms as well.

By the time the student body returns from Winter Break, the Cats will be into conference play. If the Cats from Saturday’s second half are the team that shows up in Southeastern Conference play, they may have a problem. For now, the disappointing second half is just that: a disappointing second half in a blowout victory.

“We have a few things that we need to finish,” sophomore Josh Harrellson said. “We have a few things that need to click, but that’s it. Then we’ll be a really good team.”

Jon Hale is a journalism senior. E-mail jhale@kykernel.com.