We all billed Wednesday’s matchup of UK and South Carolina as a showdown of the two frontrunners in the SEC East. I think we all expected a barn burner similar to the one we watched in Lexington when Devan Downey downed the ‘Cats with a late step back J. I expected that even though South Carolina presents all the matchup problems that have given UK the most trouble this season. I expected that even though South Carolina has but one loss on the season at home. Maybe it was unrealistic to think UK would play with South Carolina, but I don’t think it was unrealistic to expect UK to show up in the latest (but not last) “biggest game of the season”.

Instead, UK got smoked, routed, embarrassed or any other verb a bad ESPN.com head line writer could come up with. 77-59 was the final, but that game was the classic case of closer than it should have been. Every flaw that you could possibly have pointed out about this UK team was pointed out: three point defense, defensive rebounding, ball handling, secondary scoring, etc., etc. etc. Also, a new one popped up: Patrick Patterson getting his shot up. Pat got the ball as much or more than he has all season, but he got swatted time after time after time.

All time blocked shot records for SEC schools are usually reserved for non conference game against a team like Alaska-Anchorage (that’s the team that South Carolina set it previous blocked shot record against) not against the Kentucky Wildcats, the cream of the SEC. That’s exactly what South Carolina did though, and I can’t make sense of it. Patrick Patterson was 10-24 tonight (if you had told me he would put up 24 shots, I would say UK would win by double digits), and I’m pretty sure that at least 10 of his misses were blocks by Sam Muldrow, Dominique Archie, and Mike Holmes.

Say what you want about Patterson being man-handled in that game, but he never gave up. He kept fighting to the buzzer, even if his fight was out of frustration. He seemed to care that South Carolina was embarrassing his team, nobody else really did. How many times did UK let offensive rebounders crash the glass from 10 feet or more outside the basket for a follow-up jam? How many times did South Carolina jump gleefully around into a timeout, brush shoulders with a UK player, and the UK player either shuffle to miss the contact or just allow himself to be bumped?

I never thought I would say this about UK at the start of this season, but this team is lacking some leadership. Patrick Patterson and Jodie Meeks are phenomenal kids. They set a great example of hard work on and off the court. With that said, they aren’t the kind of players who are going to do things to get under the other teams’ skin. They aren’t going to put an opponent on their butts when it needs to happen. We need the personality of a Ramel Bradley: a guy who would get in your face whether you were as little as Devan Downey or as big as Andrew Bogut.

I wrote about toughness once before this season after UK lost on the road to Ole Miss. As Wink would say, UK got “out-everythinged” by South Carolina, but I think you can put toughness at the top of that list. You saw it when UK committed three quick turnovers and allowed 6 points to start the second half when it needed to take care of the ball to make a comeback. You saw it when Michael Porter seemed to want out of the game with a knee injury after being abused by Devan Downey. You saw it on the defensive boards. You saw it in body language and general laziness and lack of effort. You saw it in Jodie Meeks blown assignment on an inbounds that led to an and 1 by Evaldas Baniulis and Jodie’s benching for a few minutes.

How does a team move on after a game like this? Do you try to forget this game or do you try to watch as much tape as possible to remind the team of this embarrassment? Can they get it back together in time for the runaway SEC leader, LSU? How does the Rupp crowd respond to a game like this? Rupp figured to be rocking on Saturday, but a performance like that tends to temper enthusiasm. With UK’s recent stretch of poor play, there has been notable grumbling among the fan base; how does that manifest itself?

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I have asked a bunch of questions so far. Most of the time, people are looking for answers when they read about their teams, but all a game like this does is raise questions. Fortunately, UK has games left in which they can answer those questions.

What we do know about this loss is that it makes winning the SEC East one seed very difficult. UK is down a game and a tiebreaker to first place South Carolina with three games to go. We also know that UK has squandered a chance at a precious quality road win that would have bolstered its Tourney profile. With those three games left, and two against quality opponents, there will be more opportunities for quality wins to bolster their profile, but UK won’t have all that much margin for error. I think UK is still on the right side of the bubble, although I hope Committee members just saw the score of this game, not the game itself. I’ll be back tomorrow night to break down the action in the SEC this week. Let’s get to the grades:

Turnovers/Point guard play: F (last game A-)

Mike Porter was as bad as I have ever seen him. He was abused in every way by Devan Downey (21 points, 5 assists, 5 steals), turning the ball over 5 times in just 11 minutes before leaving with a knee injury. Liggins was out of control most of the time, and the rest of the team was about as accurate passing the ball as Casey Dick on a deep crossing route, on their way to 14 first half turnovers. On a sad note, Kevin Galloway missed the game due to the death of a grandparent.

Key Stat-Assist to turnover ratio: 11:20 (7:8 for Porter and Liggins) (23:15 last game and 9:6 for Liggins, Porter, and Galloway)

Rebounding: C- (last game D)

Yeah, UK outrebounded South Carolina 42-36, but an offensive rebound doesn’t mean quite as much when you get on a shot that you just got blocked. Patterson got his first double-double in a while, but only got three defensive rebounds. I’ve had just about enough of UK missing block out assignments in man to man defense.

Key Stat-Defensive rebounding percentage (defensive rebounds/opponent FG missed + opponent FT missed x100): (22/32+5)x100=59.5% (last game 40.0%)

Getting the ball to Patterson: B (last game B)

Like I said, Patterson put up 24 shots, which is by far a season high. He got the ball…a lot, but not always in the right positions. He kept getting setup by his teammates in situations where guys would fly in from the weak side and block the crap out of him (that’s the most eloquent sentence I’ve ever written). Patterson did a lot better when he got the ball 8-10 feet away from the basket rather than 3-4 feet away.

Key Stat-FGA+FTA-offensive rebounds by Patterson: 24+13-9=28(last game 13)

Secondary scoring: D (last game A)

Only three guys besides Patterson (28 points) and Meeks (18) scored tonight: Perry Stevenson (4), Ramon Harris (4), and Darius Miller (5). With all the weak side attention Patterson was getting, his front court mate needed to find the open space and demand the ball. Nobody did that.

Key Stat-Percentage of points scored by Meeks and Patterson: 28+14/59=71.2% (last game 42.9%)