In order to avenge last year’s thumping, the Cats are riding on the shoulders of Jodie Meeks.

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The last time UK walked into Memorial Gym in Nashville, it wasn’t pretty. Shan Foster, Ross Neltner and A.J. Ogilvy torched UK head coach Billy Gillispie and the Cats to a tune of 93-52. It certainly won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

Of course, Foster and Neltner aren’t Vanderbilt Commodores anymore.

When UK defeated Vanderbilt earlier this season, a 10-point victory with Ogilvy planted firmly on the bench, a lot of people saw that as redemption for the 41-point beat down Vandy put on UK.
It didn’t even come close.

There is no way that beating a team without their best player and on your own home court even remotely qualifies as payback. Not even by a long Jodie Meeks 3-pointer.

Saturday’s win over a depleted Arkansas team without sophomore Patrick Patterson is admirable, for the fact that UK can still win without their post presence — if Meeks decides to break a record.

Which, by the way, this was the third opposing gym/arena he’s broken a record in. Bud Walton Arena meet Freedom Hall and Thompson-Boling Arena. They sympathize with you.

But if UK plans to really, truly avenge last season’s embarrassment — a game that can be mentioned with the Gardner Webb, San Diego and Virginia Military Institute losses — it needs to happen the same way Vandy started that very same beat down.

Jodie Meeks is needs to keep breaking records. A lot of them, actually.

Whether or not Patrick Patterson plays, the odds of him being effective on a bum ankle are slim. That means Meeks will need to do his best Shan Foster impression, torching everyone in his path, including the net.

And despite multiple 40-point plus performances, the task won’t be easy. Memorial Gym is a unique place, where the benches are at the ends of the court and teams play an entire half offensively away from their coach. The crowd is literally right on the court and basically kills any chance of a coaching audible on the opposite end of the court.

Teams are left out on the court to fend for themselves, rely on their previous coaching and hope their shots are falling: a dangerous situation for even the most seasoned of teams.

Last year, with Gillispie in his first season and UK in flux, the results were disastrous. Without Patterson, the odds for a similar night are high. But UK has one X-factor that the Cats, quite unbelievably, never had with Ramel Bradley or Joe Crawford.

These Cats have a player who just can’t miss on certain nights — a player who can carry the team on his back to victory, who can improvise if he can’t hear his coach’s directions. This is a player who can change a game.
If UK wants to avenge last year’s loss and stay in first place in the Southeastern Conference East Division, it’s going to have to be the Jodie Meeks show.

The good news: the entire season has been that way so far.
Kenny Colston is a journalism junior. E-mail kcolston@kykernel.com