Saturday, January 12, 2008

Initial Thoughts on Today's Loss

I hope to have a more comprehensive post up tomorrow, but as I listen to the post-game, I wanted to create a thread for thoughts and reactions from VSL Nation.

First, as badly as Vanderbilt played for most of the game, the fact that we made such a valiant comeback in one of the toughest places to play is no small feat.

You can't get outrebounded 45-23 and expect to win. You can't turn the ball over 22 times and expect to win. What's worse, is Vanderbilt turned the ball over several times as they were making a charge down the stretch. Vanderbilt was a disappointing 16/25 (64%) from the line, and was never able to take advantage of UK's limited bench.

I thought Alan and Darshawn came off the bench and gave the team a huge lift. A lift that was much needed given the absolutely abhorrent play of Ross Neltner. Some homecoming for Ross: 2 points, 7 turnovers, 5 personal fouls. He has been nothing short of disappointing all season. He is complete liability, especially with guys like McClellan and Metcalfe ready, willing, and most importantly ABLE to play.

What say you?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

extremely disappointed. we played pretty horrible. it was great to see us come back and get the game to OT but we just kept turning the ball over all game and didn't look good. i thought there was some home town reffin. anyone see patterson swoop his hands up and in the lane during free throws? that's a technical foul they never called. i know uk is better than their record says and that they had some help they hadn't, but that's the worst RPI team we've played and you can't lose that one. extremely worried about ut thursday after seeing that. 16-2?

Anonymous said...

sad thing is the dores had ALL kind of help from the refs, thanks for crybaby stallings, and they still couldn't pull it off. i thought they were supposed to be good?

Anonymous said...

Another sad thing is anonymous trolls...have fun with your mighty cats in the NIT tournament.

Anonymous said...

if it's any consolation, maybe the loss will re-focus the team going into the UT game. a little reality check might be just the thing we need going into the second half of the season....

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what game the 'anonymous' blogger was watching, to say that Vandy got help from the refs is retarded...if you'd actually watch the game and count no-calls on VU's offensive end vs. reach-ins and really soft blocking fouls on VU's defense, I think you'd change your tune (assuming you didn't attend UT and you're able to count). Complete homer job.

A few observations:
- aside froum a couple of Foster's heroic 3's, the Dores were ice-cold from 3-point land.
- Beal missing two passes by not paying attention, wtf
- why must we wait until a 15+ point deficit, with < 12 minutes to play to turn it on...

Anonymous said...

I thought bell did a great job running the offense and the rest of the guys coming in off the bench looked good too, but why did we wait until so late to put them in? All season when things have gotten really bad stallings has pulled the starters and we got a shot in the arm from our bench. In my opinion stallings waited too long this time.
When he did put in bell he left him in while he was doing well, and i can understand pulling the freshman late in the game, but why not use him in OT? I just felt we could have managed our personnel better.

Anonymous said...

is anybody else starting to really worry about this season? i am. historically we're not great on the road. i really fear we lose to UT on thursday. and after a home game to LSU we go on road to UF & Ole Miss which will be no easy tasks. i really want to be positive but the team has got to play better, MUCH better to win at all three of these places. one game at a time. please bring the A game to knoxville. that would be a huge win and really get our confidence back up

Unknown said...

shot selection was terrible in OT, especially by shan and alex gordon. after the comeback, OT was a complete and total letdown. free throws killed us.

the OT announcing was so extremely biased it was sickening. you could almost hear the announcers pleasuring themselves at the Cat's play.

i also thought the OT officiating was pretty pro-UK, but we really killed ourselves by taking stupid shots and missing free throws.

J.B., M.D. said...

We rebound worse than Britney Spears. And that's a gross understatement.

Every loose ball off the boards seemed to go to UK, but not because of luck. Neltner and A.O. on many occasions went lazily up for a rebound with one hand, only to get it taken from their hands. Go up with two hands and rip that ball down (like Red Gordon, strangely enough).

Second chance points are a killer, especially in a place like Rupp. It gets the players into it, and more importantly the crowd.

Anonymous said...

I saw a lack of shots being followed for the rebound. Lots of shots were taken with only UK under the basket.

Anonymous said...

a bold prediction for the rest of the season. this season is about to get ugly but in the end everything will be ok. loss at UT, win against LSU, and two more L's against florida and ole miss on the road. 2-4 start isn't very good. but we'll rebound well against auburn and come away with two on the road against georgia and USC followed by another four wins at home (getting revenge on UT & UK). the last 3 are in the air but i say we finish 10-6 or 11-5 in conference (which is a 25-6 or 26-5 record, not too shabby). of course, i'm just bored and wanted to see if anyone had thoughts on that.

Anonymous said...

i never like former Florida Gator Joakim Noah and, because of that, this story makes me laugh.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-bulls-noah&prov=ap&type=lgns

Apparently, he's been benched by his own NBA teammates. Sucka...

Anonymous said...

how about a post on the UT game. kentucky was all in a ruckus and got excited for us for its biggest game so far of the year. well, this is definitely our biggest game of the year and i haven't seen any posts on any blogs or message boards yet. we have to look past uk and get over it. this is a huge opportunity