Don’t talk to Billy Gillispie about moral victories, because you could hear in his voice how disappointed he was after Edgar Sosa foiled Kentucky’s furious comeback from a 71-64 deficit with a 25 foot bomb with 2.8 seconds left to win 74-71. Clearly there are a lot of positives to take away from the way UK played and continually fought back after Louisville seemed to distance themselves on multiple occasions, but I’m with Coach Gillisipie, I really, really wanted that one.

As I watched that final possession play out, and it became clear that Edgar Sosa had no intention of passing the ball, I felt pretty good about the situation. I knew Sosa would end up taking a difficult shot, whether he took it to the basket or not, and I figured the Cats would grab the board with little time left and send the game to OT, where they would have the upper hand due to UofL’s foul trouble and their mini collapse to end regulation. What I didn’t count on was Sosa nailing that shot, and perhaps I should have, what with the way every UofL player not named Earl Clark shot from distance today. With no timeouts, Kentucky was left scrambling just to inbound the ball to attempt the tying shot, and Michael Porter’s desperation heave was not close.

To preserve my own sanity, I’m going to stop rehashing that final sequence and move on to talking about the first 39 minutes of the game.

Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson did exactly what they had to in order to pull off the win in a raucous Freedom Hall, with the exception of Jodie’s 6 turnovers. Their toughness, tenacity, and brilliance is going to be the calling card of this UK season, and it showed throughout the game. The two combined for 50 points, and the Cats needed every single one to stay in the game.

Pat and Jodie also combined to render the freshman phenom Samardo Samuels (who, by the way, is a dead ringer for Sheray Thomas) a non-factor in the game. He was only able to stay on the floor for 15 minutes thanks to Jodie drawing a foul on him three times. Jodie was as aggressive taking the ball to the hoop as he has been all season (a little bit too much so at the outset), but you have to give him credit for going right after Samuels. I’m guessing Patrick Patterson has a memory or two of the way he played last year against UofL, because he sure played like he wanted to make up for it. 22 points, 15 rebounds, and 4 assists, wow. The Cats had some trouble getting the ball to him early in the game, but it didn’t matter because he just grabbed offensive rebound after offensive rebound.

The other half of UofL’s much ballyhooed interior, Earl Clark, also played a subpar game, scoring 10 points, grabbing 8 boards with 3 assists and 7 turnovers before fouling out with 23 seconds left after melting down with two awful inbounds passes to allow UK to tie it. For that, I have to give credit to two things: Gillispie’s game plan and the play of Perry Stevenson. So far this season, UofL’s offense has run best when it has gone through Clark. Gillispie recognized that, and the Cats doubled Clark from the outset, frustrated him, forced him into turnovers, and forced him into a 2-11 shooting performance. The play of Perry Stevenson was just as big of a factor. He had to navigate some early foul trouble, but was on the floor for 31 minutes, most of which were spent harassing Clark.

This game was the first against a major conference opponent since UK fell to Miami, which made it even more intriguing than usual to watch Gillispie’s substitution patterns, which has become the favorite pastime of nearly all UK fans. After playing 49 minutes in the previous two games, Landon Slone didn’t even need to tie his shoes after warm-ups, because he didn’t play a second. I generally like to avoid second guessing, but I find this hard to understand. What’s the point of giving him all those minutes if he’s not even going to play in the biggest game of the season so far? Maybe he would have been ineffective, but it was worth giving him a shot. The Cats were desperate for any shooting or scoring by a player not named Jodie or Pat.

The fact that Landon Slone, Jorts Harrellson, Kevin Galloway, and DeAndre Liggins played a total of 17 minutes between them has to mean that either they all practiced very poorly, or that Coach Gillispie just does not think they are ready for primetime yet. The rotation was basically whittled down to Jodie, Pat, Michael Porter (who had a very nice, turnover free performance), Perry Stevenson, Ramon Harris, and a little bit of Darius Miller. You would have hoped that Darius Miller would have stepped up and provided some offensive support and some solid defense, but he could not stay with Terrence Williams, which left the Cats with Ramon Harris at wing forward. He played his first extended minutes since his injury, and he did literally nothing on offense. When your 6 man rotation in a given game has but two players capable of creating their own shot, your margin for error becomes extremely small. UK made just a few too many errors today.

The two areas in which UK made their most errors were in turning ball over (which I’ll get to later) and in defending the three point shot, specifically in transition. While UofL did uncharacteristically shoot out of their minds (Terrence Williams goes 3-5 from three, really?), most of 11 threes they hit were wide open looks, which is unacceptable against even Terrence Williams (although Earl Clark can take all the open 3’s he wants if UK plays UofL again).

Before I grade out the Cats, let me try to reflect on this game a little bit. UK was playing on the road as a 10 point underdog against a team that started out the season as number 3 in the country. That team shoots 20% better from three than they have on the season, they hit 19-23 free throws when they have shot 64.5% on the season, and UK was a 25 foot three short of taking them to overtime. I think we can gather that these Cats have some strong leadership from the coach and players, that they aren’t going to be throwing in the towel, and that they are going to be very competitive.

Now for the grades:

Turnovers/Point guard play: C

As I mentioned before, Michael Porter played well today and filled his role effectively. Unfortunately the rest of the team did not follow his lead in terms of taking care of the basketball, particularly in the first half. They had 21 turnovers on the game, 14 of which came in the first half. It really was quite amazing that they were able to stay within three points while being so careless with the ball in that first half. Also, the majority of the turnovers today were not ones committed out of aggression. Coach Gillispie praised Louisville’s pressure, but said of the turnovers “I think it was more so us playing a little bit nervous”. The turnovers started with Jodie Meeks making three mistakes very early that staked Louisville to a 13-4 lead, and they ended with Perry Stevenson throwing the ball away with the Cats down 67-64 with 1:25 left. The turnovers were facilitated by Louisville’s pressure, but I would not say that the defense forced the turnovers.

Rebounding: A

Louisville is a team with its strength in the front court, and UK dominated on the boards 32-22, including 14 offensive rebounds. As I have written before, an offensive rebound is like a turnover, and UK’s offensive rebounding counteracted the actual turnovers they committed. Their rebounding was the number one thing that kept this game close (besides the play of Meeks and Patterson).

Getting the ball to Patterson: B+

The Cats had some trouble in this area at the outset, but Patterson refused to be taken out of the game, so he rebounded. When Samuels departed, Patterson started to really dominate and the Cats fed him.

Secondary scoring: C-

Only two guys scored in double figures for UK (you know who), and only four guys scored more than 2 points (usual suspects plus Porter, 8 points, and Stevenson, 7 points). That’s not going to do it. If UK is going to consistently win games like this one, we need more shooting and scoring from other sources. It doesn’t have to be the same guy every night, but we need people to step up.