UK-Arkansas grades

As Wink predicted, I couldn’t resist pontificating just a little bit about UK, so here I am to give couple quick thoughts about the ‘Cats 79-63 road win over the Arkansas Razorbacks, as well as my grades for the game.

It’s become a common theme this season, but yesterday was all about Jodie Meeks. 45 points on 17-24 shooting is amazingly efficient, but I think the most important thing about his performance is the simple fact that the game didn’t feel like anything out the ordinary to me. Nothing he did surprised me and none of it should have surprised Arkansas, but they couldn’t do a thing about him, even though Patrick Patterson was on the bench nursing an ankle injury.

By the way, did you notice Patterson’s reaction after an interior defensive rebound allowed Michael Washington to throw in a dunk for the Hogs first points? The man was ticked!! The ball bounced to him and he slammed it on the ground and shot a nasty look toward Perry Stevenson and Josh Harrellson.

Jodie has come to love the big stage of national television. It started when he went off on Super Tuesday in Knoxville, then he nailed the game winner last Tuesday on ESPN to beat Florida, now he drops 45 on Arkansas on CBS. His big game brought more national attention to the ‘Cats yesterday. Highlights of Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, and Jodie led off most highlight shows, then led into a conversation about National Player of the Year. Much to the chagrin of most UK fans, UK has disappeared from the consciousness of most basketball fans, but Jodie has put an end to that this year.

Speaking of that, Andy Katz has named Meeks Player of the Week in his Weekly Watch.

No one else scored in double figures for UK, but there were a few encouraging performances. Ramon played probably his best game since his injuries yesterday, throwing up a lite version of Kevin Galloway’s game against Florida with 7 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists. I think Ramon Harris is a much more serviceable player when UK goes small like they did for much of yesterday’s game. He can play a sort of 3-4 hybrid and less ball handling responsibility falls on him. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t understand why he played 35 minutes to Galloway’s 3.

The other guy who I was pleased with against Arkansas was Darius Miller. He hit the boards hard like he always does and did a very nice job when UK was playing small and he played the 4. As the season goes on, Darius is learning how to play team defense better and better, and it’s becoming more and more predictable how he is going to contribute.

Here’s what you’ve been waiting for, the grades and key stats:

Turnovers/Point guard play: B (last game C+)

Jodie did more ball handling than he has all season against Arkansas, which I liked seeing. Porter did have a bunch of turnovers (5), but when he played within himself, he was good. I expect him to learn from the film that I’m sure he will be watching. Galloway and Liggins only played 12 minutes between them and I think that’s mainly because Arkansas didn’t have the bodies to force UK to handle the ball under pressure like Florida did. The key thing for the point guards today was to get the ball to Jodie and clearly that was done well.

Key Stat-Assist to turnover ratio: 15:16 (6:6 for Liggins, Porter, and Galloway) (14:19 last game)

Rebounding: B+ (last game B+)

With Patterson out, I was worried about how UK would defend the offensive glass, but Darius Miller and Ramon Harris picked up the slack, grabbing 15 rebounds between them. Also, phenomenal work by Jodie Meeks on the boards. A lot of times, you see a guy who is playing as well offensively as Jodie was yesterday disappear in other areas. Jodie did not fall victim to that. Amazingly (I sure use that word a lot when I talk about Jodie), 2 of Jodie’s best rebounding performances have come in his offensive explosions against UT (8 rebounds) and Arkansas (7 rebounds). Jodie helped the ‘Cats to a 35-30 rebounding advantage.

Key Stat-Defensive rebounding percentage (defensive rebounds/opponent FG missed + opponent FT missed x100): (25/32+9)x100=70.0%(last game 65.1%)

Getting the ball to Patterson: NA

Secondary scoring: B (last game A-)

Nobody exploded in Patterson’s absence, but that’s because Jodie was too busy doing so. Michael Porter hit some early shots that helped Jodie carve out some additional space on the offensive end. Darius Miller contributed a couple buckets (including a nice drive and slam in the last moments) and did a good job getting to the line. Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris also found space for some buckets as well.

Key Stat-Percentage of points scored by Meeks and Patterson: 45+0/79=60.0% (last game 44.1%)