Finally we saw Kentucky get a lead in the second half, keep it and build on it. It was an all around great effort by every Cat that saw action. We saw Miller set a new career high, seen Calipari get his 500th win, and held on to the the nations second longest home winning streak now at 33 straight wins. We even saw Eloy Vargas get a block.
Let's start with the great play of Darius Miller. He scored every way he could, from jumpers in the lane, long range threes, and hitting from the charity stripe to end the game with 24 points, a new career high. He was 9-15 from the floor, 3-5 from the line, 2-4 from deep, 3 assits and 3 blocks. All around his best game of the year. It's good to see this from Miller as the Cats are going to need this kind of production from him every game going forward to make a deep run in March.
For Florida, the star in my mind for them was Kenny Boynton. He finished the game with 21 points going 5-9 from long range. 5-9!! Not too shabby for a guy who shoots 29% from three on the year. But he done just what I thought he would. He has the tendency to light it up when he gets going. The rest of the Gators team played a good game every starter getting double digits except one.
I'm not going to spend too much time talking about Florida when our team played so well, and there is so much to talk about.
How about Josh Harrellson. Now he didn't have a huge scoring night having only 6 points, but what he did do is score in crucial spots in the game. The big story with Josh was his rebounding, he finished the game with 12 rebounds, 6 of them coming on the offensive end of the glass. I have said it a hundred times this year. Harrellson isn't the most gifted or the most athletic player on the floor, but he more than makes up for it in heart and hustle.
Doron Lamb bounced back from his poor outing at Arkansas scoring 14 points on 2-4 from 3 and 6-9 from the floor. What doesn't show up on the stat sheets is the energy and enthusiasm he played with for the entire game. Doron also had a good showing on the defensive end of things, sticking to his guy and not letting them get an open look too often. Good to see him have a good game after the way he played at Arkansas.
Brandon Knight played a well rounded game today. Finishing the game with 16 points going 5-10 From the floor, 2-3 from deep, 4-5 from the line and recording 6 assists. What I liked about his game today was the way he slashed to the basket and how he tried to get everyone involved in the scoring, and doing a good job finding the open man for an easy bucket.
Terrence Jones just hasn't been himself as of late. And what I mean by that is he just isn't dominating people under the basket the way he was a month ago. A lot of that may be due to the fact that we have no bench and the minutes are starting to show their wear on him. Maybe he is just trying to do too much on his own instead of just trying to make the easy play. Jones finished the game with just 8 points and 9 boards. But he did have two good blocks, but for Kentucky to have a chance at a deep tournament run Jones has got to get back to the way he was playing at the start of conference play. Let's just hope that Jones can find his former self in time for these last two regular season games.
All in all it was a great game that showed some promise for this team. Sure there was some mental lapses during the game (shot clock violation in second half) and still some turnovers that shouldn't have happened, even though Kentucky ended the game with only 6 turnovers. There was some that was just unforced errors, but I can live with those as long as they play
the way they did today.
Up next the Cats got Vandy coming to Rupp on Tuesday for Senior Day as Josh "Jorts" Harrellson plays his last game in Rupp Arena. It would be great to see Big Jorts leave Rupp on a winning note.
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