Dec. 5th Weekend Recap

Well, Kentucky certainly justified their Top 5 ranking. UK went on a 28-2 run in the 1st half against UNC and held off a 2nd half comeback to come out on top 68-66. The Wildcats looked as good as anyone in the country in the 1st half. John Wall runs the break as well as anyone in the country, has tremendous quickness, and finishes well at the rim. He also has great passing skills and consistently finds the open man. The UK defense left the Heels completely inept in the 1st half, not allowing UNC's perimeter guards to get the ball inside. In the 2nd half, Wall and UK were sloppier and UNC were able to slow the game down and get the ball inside to Thompson, Davis, and Zeller, and they whittled the lead down. However, Kentucky was able to hold on for the win behind Wall and Patrick Patterson's 19 points. Big win for this young team, and while they still need to play consistently well for 40 minutes, UK definitely established themselves as a great team and potentially a title contender.

In other weekend basketball news, Evan Turner went down hard after attempting a dunk and will be out 8 weeks with 2 broken vertebrae. That's a big hit to a team who IMO was hovering right around top 10 territory and was trying to establish themselves as a force in the Big Ten. Turner is the guy that makes their offense go and is really the only guy that can create a shot by himself. Without Turner, Ohio St will struggle to stay at .500 in Big Ten play until Turner comes back, and they also have non conf games against Butler and West Virginia to deal with. Props to NC State for beating Marquette and Wake Forest for going into the Kennel and taking down Gonzaga in a very hostile environment. No props to Penn St, who managed 42 points and 3 of 15 shooting from Talor Battle in a loss to Temple, and Oregon, who lost by nearly 40 to Missouri.

On Sunday, UCLA actually gave a valiant effort for once but never really threatened the #1 team in the nation. Kansas shot poorly (except for Xavier Henry) and wasn't their best but got big contributions from Henry (16 points on 4 threes) and Markieff Morris (19 points in 21 minutes) to win at Pauley Pavilion. Number 3 Villanova hit 11 first half threes and 16 overall to drown Maryland. The Terps were on fire as well (52% from the field) but they couldn't keep up with Nova, partially because they gave up 20 offensive rebounds. Clemson beat rival South Carolina, Boston College nipped Miami in the first ACC conference game of the year, Portland lost again to a weaker mid-major (not good for their at large hopes) and OU beat a struggling Arizona team.

Just a preview of what's to come. In the next few weeks I will be debuting my first Top 25, Bracketology, and Bubble Watch. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to do this this year, but if I have the time, why not? Plus it will be a good review of the early non-conference season. Until then, I'll continue with the daily updates and try and keep you aware of the big picture in college basketball. Because in this blog, we are always focused on March.