Transcript
Matt Jones (0:00)
Welcome everybody. It is the local toy dealers KSR post game show. The Cats get a massive win at home tonight. Hobbled, barely able to put forth a team at the end and still find a way to get a victory against Tennessee, sweeping the season series 75, 64. You know, this is, for me, this is one of the better wins we've had in the last few years for a variety of reasons. One is it's against Tennessee. Tennessee's obviously top five. Kentucky breaks an all time record for most wins against top 15 ranked opponents in the history of the school. We've never had seven in the regular season and we have seven this year. Now that's in part because we usually don't play enough for these teams to get there. But 7 and 1 against top 15 teams this year and that's an unbelievable accomplishment. This team is very unpredictable, but one thing you can predict pretty certainly is they show up in these games against top teams and they play well. And tonight they get the victory over the balls. The fifth time in the last six games they've beaten Tennessee and they do it in front of a raucous home environment. You tell, we talked when we heard the snow was coming. What's Rupp going to be like? I could tell at the bar before when it was extremely crowded that it was gonna be great. And then I. The arena, you know, we talk about ESPN and where they place the microphones. Well, wherever they placed them tonight, it was loud. And a big kudos to everybody that went there for what sounded like an absolutely awesome atmosphere. For me, this game is. There's a lot of people to talk about. Actually. This was sort of the epitome of, of a team win team. I would say almost everyone that played played really well. And I. There's maybe one person I wouldn't say that about. But you know what, I'm not gonna call them out because I want to be positive about all the people that did play well because I thought there was just so much good that occurred. Obviously don't have Jackson Robinson start, you lose Lamont Butler with eight or nine minutes to go. Obviously Kerr's not playing and Carr is still not even close to 100%. And then these other guys just decide, you know what, we're not losing this one. And I want to go through the people that I thought had the biggest impact. I'll start with actually Kobe Braya because his threes at the end. You know, when you don't have Robinson or Butler, you. You lose basically your two primary offense starters. And so it's, you know, how are you going to get the offense going? Well with Kobe Braya, you know, he's such a good shooter. Just how about step back threes, two step back threes. Down the stretch, game was tied. He hits two in the next three plays, and then. And then after they crowd out of him, he drives the basket and throws a lob to away. I thought offensively this was maybe as good a game as Bray has played completely. You know, against Florida, he obviously had seven made threes, but he did a bunch of stuff. He drove to the rim. I thought Kobe was great. You know, the two kids from Kentucky, like, I mean, that's going to be what most people remember this game, and they should. Trent, no. 11 points, three threes, you know, drove to the basket, played pretty good defense, rebounded, hit free throws. I mean, what a game by the Mountain Mamba. And all due respect to my man Mark Pope, who I love, I'm not doing holler baller. I'm doing Mount Mamba. That's the name. He seems to like it and the fans have clearly embraced it. And that kid you talk about, a kid that has grown into feeling confident. What I love about Noah is he believes not only he belongs out there, he's not scared. His third three, he knew. J. Billis pointed this out. He knew before he caught it, he, he was going to take it. And so much of a kid like that is about, do you believe you should be there? And he does. And he just keeps getting better. I thought he was huge tonight. Travis Perry, you know, Perry's got some limits on defense, but he keeps, like getting closer, closer and closer on defense, and then makes two threes, each of which were huge. Not scared. I love that about both those guys because the deficiencies they have, some of them they won't be able to overcome, but some of them they will. And until then, keeping the confidence, you gotta like it. And to have those two guys combined, did Noah have 11 or 13? Now in my head I'm thinking 11, 11. Okay, so to combine 11 points for him, six, prepare. You tell me before the game, we get 17 from those two guys from Perry, eight from Perry, 19 from those two guys. Come on, that's huge. I thought the most important play of the game was Ansley Almondor. We're down three, we're reeling. We're really not getting a lot of space on offense. We're really not getting a lot of movement. And he goes off the bouts and gets an and one. That, to me, was the most Important play of the game, stop their run. He makes the free throw, ties the game, and we really kind of take over from there when you go back and I will watch the last eight minutes of this game again. Ansley Almondor's play, I thought was the most important play. And it wasn't a three. It was him taking off the bounce. Thought that was. Thought that was huge. Amare was good in the role. He kind of does that. Top of the key thing. He also had a huge and one down the stretch in the second half. You know. You know, I still find myself Billy a. No, no, no. Yes. When he shoots sometimes. But that was a big one. I think that put us up two. He got a name when he missed a free throw. Maybe put us up three. But big play there by him as well. Away. Otega away has hit double digits in every game this year.