Transcript
Matt Jones (0:00)
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Billy Rutledge (0:27)
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Matt Jones (0:30)
Welcome everyone. It is the local toy dealers KSR Post Game show the Cats with a great win in Lexington tonight on a freezing cold day, 81 to 69, Kentucky goes to three and one in the SEC and now with its fifth win this year against a team ranked in the top 15. Pretty amazing run for Kentucky. Five and oh against ranked teams. That's the best record of any team in the country. 859-280-2287 will open it up. As you know, when we do these late nights during the week in SEC play, I really like to hear from you all because it's usually been a long day, but tonight was, I thought, you know, it wasn't the best game Kentucky's played all year, but in some ways I think it was one of the more impressive and important wins. And the reason I say that is Kentucky won without playing its best and without in one a different way. Basically, if you go look at the games they've played against really good opponents, they've won them by outscoring the other team, the Duke. The Duke game was a little strange, but still in the end made plays down the stretch that Duke did not make. Gonzaga, we score in the 90s, we score 106 against Florida, we score in the 90s against Mississippi State. This game, even though we scored 81, a lot of that was free throws at the end. This was a game played in the 60s and 70s and as we've talked about, I wasn't sure if this team could beat a good team in a game that's in the 60s and 70s. Well, they did and for me the story was defense and rebounding. I mean that's the first time I can say that all year. Offensively they were, they weren't bad, but they were kind of a notch down from them at their full power. Obviously started 1 for 11 from the line, shot a lot better after that. But even in the second half, it just. It didn't feel like the offense had complete flow, but defensively, you know, they really helped made Texas A and M take the shots they wanted them to take. And what I mean by that is they wanted A and M to take threes. They didn't feel like A and M could make them. They made some at the beginning, but in the second half they adjusted a little and A and M just had a hard time getting good looks the entire game. And then we out rebounded A and M. And if I, if you had said to me you're going to out rebound A and M, I would have been surprised. If you're going to tell me you're going to see essentially keep them off the offensive glass, I would have been even more surprised. And they went and did it, and I think that makes this win extra special. Texas A and M is a tough team. They're physical without Wade Taylor, they don't have the explosive scoring boost, but it was easily a game that we could have lost if we didn't play tough, and we did. A couple people I thought were especially impressive. For me, the player of the game was Amari Williams. You know, we've talked a lot about how you know Amari. I don't say I've been hard on him, but like, his limitations have frustrated me. But tonight I thought he was excellent. Rebounded well. He's passed well, really, all year, and distributed, but also thought his defense is good. He only played 23 minutes, but had eight points and 12 rebounds, three blocks. I really just loved the way he played the entire game. I thought it was. It was probably his best performance of the year to me, that we've seen. Jackson Robinson, obviously great in the first half, 15 points in the first half, 22 overall. I think he hit the biggest shot in the game, which was the little pump fake three that then became a two. I thought that was kind of the G, the shot that sealed the game. But in the first half when Kentucky was really struggling, he ended the first half hot. And when Kentucky had the lead at halftime, after I thought they hadn't played well, I felt really good about the game. So, you know, excellent win. Travis Perry, six points, two big threes, 10 minutes with Butler. You know, first of all, Butler got banged up about as hard as somebody's gonna get banged up in a game. He. I think Billy hurt his shoulder, he hurt his ankle and he hurt his knee and he hurt his face. He got. I think he hurt everything in the game, But Perry had 10 minutes and I thought he did really, really well in those 10 minutes. Andrew Carr looked a little limited just in terms of how he was able to move. So other guys came in. Almanor had really good minutes. You know, one of the thing. I promise you that, like, I know I'm repeating myself, but when one of the things I love about Mark Pope is, and it sounds simplistic, but we haven't seen this in recent years, he sees mistakes and deficiencies. And rather than just saying, you know, we'll get them in March or we'll cover it up, he works on it. So a huge problem for this team has been boxing out. So what do they do? They create an award for whoever boxes out the best in a game. I mean, Billy, that's awesome. That's the one thing this team was deficient at. So they create an award. Ansley Almanor wins it the first two times. But the mere fact that they create an award for it says they recognize the problem and they fix it. They don't just double down on poor decisions. So you. I just. I love that it's so refreshing to see a coach who is not stuck in his way but is actually willing to change. And listening to Pope on the post game, he talked about how he A&M's weakness was shooting threes. So he wanted to have guys shoot threes, but he wanted the right guys to shoot threes. And at the beginning, a couple of those guys made them, but they thought it would even out over time. And then it did. And, you know, they hit seven threes in the first 18 minutes of the game. I think I tweeted out at that moment, they're averaging five a game in SEC play. Now they have seven. They didn't hit another one. Billy, the rest of the game.