Elston Turner smacks Kentucky

In their first ever road game in the SEC, Texas A&M and Elston Turner left Rupp Arena after winning in convincing fashion 83-71. Kentucky is now 10-5 (1-1) on the season, and with this loss is possibly a bubble team for the NCAA tournament. 

The one thing I said Kentucky had to do was keep Elston Turner from getting hot, they couldn't have failed worse. Turner, a 5th year senior hit from everywhere on the floor. It didn't matter if the shots were contested or not, you just knew when he released the ball it was going in, it was just his night. He finished the game with 40pts, coming ever so close to the record amount of points (45 by David Robinson in 1987) scored by a visiting player in Rupp Arena. Hats off to the young man. He played probably the best individual game I have seen all season long, and doing it on the road makes it that much more impressive. At the end of the game, when Turner left the floor, he got a very big round of applause from the Big Blue fans in attendance. Kentucky fans know good basketball when they see it, and tonight that's exactly what they saw from Elston Turner. 

The only bright spot for Kentucky was the unbelievable play of Nerlens Noel. He seemed to do everything tonight. Everytime Kentucky needed a basket, or a defensive stop, Noel answered. His stat line for the game is just ridiculous 15pts, 11rebs, 7blks, 4stls and 6asts for the game. This kid had a near tripple double in points, blocks and rebounds, but the most impressive stat to me was the 6 assits. How many big men in  college basketball lead their team in assits for a game? If every player on Kentucky's team played with Nerlens' energy and intensity, we would not be sitting here discussing a loss. 

I'm not sure what to make of this years crop of freshman. Last season the freshman carried the team for the most part. Everyone talks about the leadership of Darius Miller, Doron Lamb and Terrence Jones being the main reason for the freshmans success last year, I never did buy that. They just put aside their egos, played team ball and accomplished what every player dreams about. For this years team to have any chance at all at repeating last years teams success,  they must work for it. Just from watching the games, these guys are not giving the effort they should. We never see a sense of urgency, we never see fourty minutes of hustle and we never see "team" basketball. Until this team learns to do those things, we will continue to see games like we witnessed today. Kentucky should have won this game by twenty points or more, but when certain players do not play to their potential, and a visting player turns itno Ray Allen, that's hard to do.