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Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 12-21-2014, 05:50 PM:

The rest of the country is starting to get to know that our Cats may be a team of the ages and all basketball fans everywhere will be watching to see how far we will go.

CHICAGO – In the main arena bowl at the United Center, the band struck up as halftime drew to an end. Cheers followed. Evidently there had been sufficient cleanup of all the UCLA blood and dignity spilled on the court that it was deemed safe for the Kentucky basketball team to return to the killing floor. And at this moment, three members of the school’s spirit squad popped out of a room off a hallway in the back. Their problem hit them. They had left the Wildcats without pom aid.

“That’s our fight song,” one of the girls said. “Oops. I think we missed it.”

And that was it. On the list of Kentucky’s imperfections Saturday, that was the beginning and the end. The rest was brutish, unmerciful and just completely absurd, this 83-44 victory that transcended all metaphors for demolition or involuntary surgeries. This was something far, far more terrifying, something we had not seen this insensate leviathan accomplish before: The Wildcats destroyed a team’s hope. That is a very hard thing to do against athletes conditioned to believe all things are possible at all times.

And the nation’s No. 1 team nevertheless made emphatically clear to a very respectable major college basketball program: No, there is no chance for you, that nothing is possible but sorrow and darkness and a whole lot of badly missed basketball shots.

If you think Kentucky will get beat this season, you are not thinking unreasonably. It is also time to prepare for the eventuality that you may be wrong. The Wildcats are now competing only against their own ability to crush the will out of every team that happens across their path.

"As it grows, they’re going to get hungrier with it," UCLA coach Steve Alford said. "Just look at their demeanor. This thing reaches 18, 19, 20 in a row, you may not get them."

Bad as it had been for others this year, it was never bad like this. Before UCLA scored a point, a single, solitary point, Kentucky posted 24. The Bruins finished the first half with seven points. Seven. They wound up averaging 0.2 points per possession before halftime. It was the lowest-scoring half by a Kentucky opponent since Dec. 28, 1943. Seriously: 1943. No one had been this feckless against this program since before the Potsdam Declaration.

For a good 16 minutes of game action, the courtside stat monitors were stuck on the pregame screen, the score static at 0-0. It was a simpler time for UCLA, back then. A time of innocence and wonder. It was a better time. It is a long, long time ago now.

"They took our confidence out right at the beginning,” said Bruins guard Bryce Alford, who by the middle of the first half was bent over, exhausted, like he’d been running through a sandstorm. "And they put it to us from then on."

So this is now the horrifying prospect facing college basketball. It is one thing to get beaten by Kentucky; it is another thing to have your faith driven from you.

Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 12-21-2014, 09:08 PM:

It makes you wonder how many times this team will play a game like that. I think this is just the beginning to a season where we are going to have multiple games like the UCLA game where we just plain dominate our opponent.

Posted by m hamilton (Member # 127) on 12-21-2014, 09:37 PM:

There are some of the teams in the conf. that can't carry a candle to the UCLA team we faced yesterday. They are just that bad. On a given nigh they could give us a scare because we are looking past them, but you'll see us beast some of those teams like that again this season!

Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 12-21-2014, 10:44 PM:

I don't think Cal is that kind of a coach where he would not let a lesser team sneak up on us. He will have them ready every game. If someone sneaks up on us I would be surprised. I know he wants to beat the Cards and Pitino!

Posted by m hamilton (Member # 127) on 12-21-2014, 11:11 PM:

I'm just saying teams like Buffalo and Columbia shouldn't have even been in the game with us and yet we struggled with both of those teams!

Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 12-22-2014, 11:47 AM:

In the Buffalo we outscored them 38-14 in the second half and had a bad shooting first half going 12 for 35. Both the games you had reference to were early in the season and the poor play was partly due to getting to know how to play together and Cal trying different players playing with each other. That's why he even plays teams like Buffalo and Columbia early in the year. Cal knows what he is doing and look how well it turned out. We can't critique his judgment as he knows exactly what he is doing.