Column: Cats waste opportunity for SEC East crown

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Sam Muldrow took one look at Patrick Patterson, but didn’t think. He just slammed the ball into the basket — an exclamation point that lead to a thunderous roar from the 16,035 in attendance at the Colonial Life Arena.

Call it an opportunity wasted, a chance blown or just a good old-fashioned butt kicking. But it was all of the above and then some.

Muldrow’s dunk was just one example of how Darrin Horn’s Gamecocks showed the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division that the division crown was not up for grabs. And they did so by having the conference’s most decorated team take another shot on the chin.

“I think they just wanted it more,” junior Perry Stevenson said. “And they’re really good. We knew they were capable (of playing tough) and we had to play hard to win.”

Somewhere along the line, UK must have had a brain fart on South Carolina’s toughness.

It was the frequent blocks that South Carolina laid on Patterson, the steals Devan Downey seemingly came up with every few minutes and the general dominance South Carolina displayed from the opening tip to the final buzzer that led UK head coach Billy Gillispie to admit the lack of competitiveness his team displayed.
Wednesday night, both UK and South Carolina had an opportunity to hold a one-game lead in the SEC East with three games left. With remaining games at home against No. 18 Louisiana State and Georgia before traveling to Florida, the onus was on the Cats to give themselves a slim cushion at the top.

But the Gamecocks bedazzled the Cats more than the halftime magic show Wednesday. They drove the lane and pitched out for wide open 3-pointers that were easily drained. They came up with multiple offensive rebounds, steals and a wide array of ways to score. UK acted like it was something they had never seen before.

Horn’s game plan exposed both of UK’s stars. It also exposed a trademark of this year and last — when faced with a big opportunity, the Cats falter. And they don’t just lose, they lose badly.

There’s no need to rattle off the losses; everyone knows them as if they were the 10 Commandments. But they all show that if a team can get out, knock the Cats around and get UK reeling, there’s nothing that can help the guys in blue from getting a good beat down. This season, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and South Carolina proved just that.

“Our team has not played in one game that when someone made it extremely difficult, we didn’t take anything that wasn’t ours,” Gillispie said.

This game solved a lot of things for the Cats. There shouldn’t be any concern about Patterson or Jodie Meeks jumping early to the NBA. And for those thinking UK could hold on and make the NCAA tournament, get out your rosary beads and start praying. The humiliation South Carolina gave the Cats was enough to not only put the Cats on the bubble, but on the back end of it. There is no room for failure from here on out, unless UK feels like dancing—in the National Invitational Tournament.

And while Stevenson and Gillispie said Saturday’s game against LSU doesn’t have any extra pressure, the fact is that it does. With only one win against a ranked opponent — Tennessee in Knoxville — the Cats need another marquee win, like the one they could have gotten Wednesday night.

Don’t expect any postseason wins — SEC or otherwise — until they find it.
Kenny Colston is a journalism junior. E-mail kcolston@kykernel.com.