Despite our best “JC…JC…Put in Jared Carter” chant, Billy Gillispie refused to put in Carter with a sixteen point lead and under two minutes remaining. 

Kentucky, or should I say Jodie Meeks, controlled the game from the start as the Cats reeled off a 79-63 win over the Razorbacks at Bud Walton Arena.  It is the Cats second strait SEC win as they moved to 7-3 in conference, the Hogs fell to a very disappointing 1-9.

Simply put John Pelphrey’s squad is not very good.  They struggle defensively and without Courtney Fortson they couldn’t manage any type of offense.

Once again the story of the game was Jodie Meeks, who scored 45 points on 17-of-24 shooting and 7-of-12 from deep while recording seven rebounds, three steals, two assists and only committed three turnovers.  The 40-point performance was Meeks’ third of the season. 

Defensively the Razorbacks just did not have an answer for Meeks.  Stefan Welsh chased him around all game but the highlights were Meeks making him trip on himself and then when Meeks refused the screen and crossed him over for a beautiful three for the wing.  Jodie Meeks is really good and teams that don’t play defense are not going to keep him from scoring 30. 

With Meeks scoring 57-percent of the UK points they didn’t have anyone else in double figures.  Michael Porter and Darius Miller followed with eight a piece.  Porter knocked down 2-of-3 threes and when he played to his limits he was effective.  Porter needs to bring the ball up and then spot up at the wing and be ready to shoot.  When he did that he was effective.  When he tried to penetrate he got in trouble.  But, I do have to give him credit for the nice feed to Ramon Harris on the block.

Miller continues to show signs and even knocked down a three.  One problem with Miller is that he sporadically decides to take it to the hole and when he makes that decision, he goes to the hole and the ball doesn’t find a way out.  However, defensively I believe that he continues to improve and he was also aggresive on the boards, finishing with six.

With Patrick Patterson out they didn’t have any post scoring but against a struggling Arkansas team it wasn’t needed.

For Arkansas to be successful Michael Washington had to have a huge game and without Fortson they couldn’t find ways to give him the rock in good spots.  He finished with 14 points but didn’t control the game against a UK team that was limited in the frontcourt.

I am not going to get negative after this one at all because there really isn’t anything that stands out.  But, I continue to be flabbergasted by the substitution patterns.  Before the game I was asked how many minutes Kevin Galloway would play after his breakout game on Tuesday.  I responded with six minutes and was serious in my response.   With a little over nine minutes in the first half he saw his first action.  Galloway basically gave Meeks short rests throughout and didn’t see any extended minutes.  He finished with three minutes. Meanwhile, Harris played 35 minutes.  Harris finished with a pretty good line (7pts, 9reb, 6ast) but I still don’t get it. I think that is what Gillispie wants. 

Also, a sidenote on the broadcast…Bill Rafferty thinks that Perry Stevenson is a lot better than he really is.  I love Billy Raf but come on he doesn’t deserve any type of slurpage.

Oh and a week and a half after the Cats allowed Mississippi State to shoot 14-of-27 (52%) they held Arkansas to 4-of-22 (18%) shooting from deep.

I’m done here because there isn’t really much to talk about.  Guy will be on soon with an hour ramble I am sure.  Simply, Jodie Meeks couldn’t be stopped, the Cats got some help offensively in the first half  from Porter, Miller and others, the Razorbacks can’t play defense and without Fortson they can’t score.  I’m still trying to figure out how they beat Texas and Oklahoma.

I do have one complaint though. Why no Jared Carter? 

“JC…JC…Put in Jared Carter”.