Kentucky 85 - 45 Grand Canyon (No. 2,041)

Wasn't it fun to have it all back?  Rupp Arena, Tom Leach, the best uniforms in college basketball, Mike Pratt, Coach Cal, the Blue Mist -- not to mention the Harrison Twins, Willie Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress, Dakari Johnson, Marcus Lee, and Dominique Hawkins.  Plus we had some new treats -- Tony Delk doing studio work for the SEC Network, and a bevy of freshmen who combined for 27 points.

It's obviously too early in the season to draw too many conclusions -- in fact, as we learned last year, we can't really draw conclusions until at least March.  But this is the sixth time now that we've been on this journey with Coach Cal, so here are a few things for us to keep in mind.

1.  He's not a big gambler on defense.  Here are UK's rankings in terms of defensive turnovers created:

2010:  218
2011:  293
2012:  301
2013;  295
2014:  303

UK is going to press more this year than it has in the past, but I think it would be a mistake to expect a whole lot of 1996-style turnovers and dunks.  Cal seems to think that constantly going for steals leads to breakdowns on defense and easy buckets for the other side.  And he doesn't want his guys getting out of position, because:

2.  He really teaches solid interior defense.  Here are UK's rankings in terms of 2-point shooting percentage allowed:

2010:  6
2011:  8
2012:  1
2013:  8
2014:  49

Last year's defense wasn't at the same level, in part because UK wasn't blocking as many shots as usual.  Here are UK's rankings in terms of block percentage:

2010:  1
2011:  6
2012:  1
2013:  8
2014:  15

Tonight the Cats blocked 10 shots and held Grand Canyon to a 2-point shooting percentage of only 24.2 percent.  That's the type of defense UK wants to play.  Meanwhile, on offense:

3.  Don't expect a lot of three-point shots.  Here is where UK ranks in terms of the percentage of shots they take from three-point range:

2010:  198
2011:  180
2012:  313
2013:  273
2014:  297

So here's the bottom line:  we shouldn't expect this team to play a high-flying, run and gun sort of style.  Instead, the goal is to be very efficient on both offense and defense -- working the ball inside when the Cats have the ball, and preventing the other team from doing the same.

By those standards, tonight's performance was quite successful.  The Cats score 1.25 points per possession -- the type of rate that would normally lead the country -- while holding Grand Canyon to only 0.66.  That's how you build up a 43-16 lead at the half, and how you win by 40 points in a game with only 68 possessions.

As for the freshmen, it's too early to say very much -- but Karl-Anthony Towns (8 points and 8 rebounds in 22 minutes, the only freshman to start) looked really good.

In any event, the best of all sports seasons is back, and we're off on another roller coaster ride.  After watching so many games as a neutral observer, I enjoyed being a fan again.

Kentucky 84 - 70 N. Carolina (No. 2,151)

Here's a great scene for the upcoming AMC show The Dream Game, which tells the story of Joe Hall's first six seasons at Kentucky:

On December 9, 1974, Joe Hall was in trouble.  His first season ended with UK losing to Indiana in the Elite Eight.  His second season was an utter disaster, as the Cats went 13-13.  Only three games into his third season, the Cats were blown out at Indiana, losing 98-74.  Now the Cats were in Louisville for a game with North Carolina, and the Tar Heels had a big early lead.  With his career on the line, Hall refused to back down.  He threw his jacket onto the floor, pulled his starters, and willed his team back into the contest.  Led by Jimmy Dan Connor's 35 points, the Cats roared back to beat UNC 90-78, and went all the to the National Championship game before losing to UCLA.  Hall's career was saved.

Tom Leach and Mike Pratt spent a fair amount of time on this story during their broadcast of the UK/UNC game, and I don't blame them -- it's a great story.  But I don't remember that game.  Instead, I remember what Dean Smith did in the next six times he played UK:

12/08/75:  N. Carolina 90 - 77 Kentucky (at Charlotte, N.C.)
03/19/77:  N. Carolina 79 - 72 Kentucky (NCAA East Regional Final) (at College Park, Md.)
12/26/81:  N. Carolina 82 - 69 Kentucky (at E. Rutherford, N.J.)
12/27/89:  Kentucky 110 - 121 N. Carolina (at Louisville)
12/10/90:  N. Carolina 84 - 81 Kentucky
03/25/95:  Kentucky 61 - 74 N. Carolina (NCAA Southeast Regional Final) (at Birmingham, Ala.)

Dean went 13-3 in his career against UK, winning those last six games in a row,

As you can imagine, that sort of history can give a fan a bit of a complex.  I never saw UK beat UNC until I was 34 years old, and Tubby Smith won the first of three easy victories in a row over Carolina teams coached by Matt Doherty.  Those games were fun, but beating Matt Doherty didn't really feel like beating Carolina.  Sure enough, Doherty was soon replaced by Roy Williams, and he quickly turned the series around:

01/03/04:  Kentucky 61 - 56 N. Carolina
12/04/04:  N. Carolina 91 - 78 Kentucky
12/03/05:  Kentucky 79 - 83 N. Carolina
12/02/06:  N. Carolina 75 - 63 Kentucky
12/01/07:  Kentucky 77 - 86 N. Carolina
11/18/08:  N. Carolina 77 - 58 Kentucky

So at this point in my life I was 42 years old, and I had seen UK go 1-11 against Carolina teams coached by Dean Smith and Roy Williams, with the Cats' only victory having taken place in Williams's first rebuilding season.  I can still remember having a long conversation with Matthew during that 2008 game, in which I berated Billy Gillespie, the UK Athletic Department, and everyone else in Kentucky (up to and including the Governor, I think) for allowing UK basketball to fall into such an embarrassing state.  Meanwhile, Carolina went on to capture the 2008-09 National Title.

But the gap between UNC and UK had finally grown too large, even for the folks in Lexington, and they went out and hired John Calipari.  Since he arrived, this series -- so often marred by blowouts in the past -- has crackled with energy:

12/05/09:  Kentucky 68 - 66 N. Carolina
12/04/10:  N. Carolina 75 - 73 Kentucky
03/27/11:  N. Carolina 69 - 76 Kentucky (NCAA East Regional Final, Newark, N.J.)
12/03/11:  Kentucky 73 - 72 N. Carolina
12/14/13:  N. Carolina 82 - 77 Kentucky

This was much better stuff, but these were difficult, nerve-wracking games to watch.

All of this is to say that I enormously enjoyed Saturday's 84-70 win over UNC.  For the first time since Joe Hall's win back in 1974 (unless you count those blowouts over Matt Doherty), the Cats beat UNC with relatively little drama.  Oh, I still got nervous, but then again I'm a raging pessimist.  To everyone else, UK was clearly the better team.

There are many things I don't like about UNC, but one thing I do like is that most of the time, the Heels like to play fast.  They burned UK on a few transition baskets early on, and they were the first good team all year who really tried to run with the Big Blue.  The Heels also shot it well -- they went 6-13 from three-point range -- and they became the first team all year to score 70 points against the Cats.  UNC was also the first team this season to score more than one point per possession against UK.  So UK couldn't just grind out a win; they would have to score.

And score they did.  It was a joy to watch the Kentucky offense come to life.  Aaron Harrison, who had been struggling with his outside shot for most of the season, made three three-pointers to help stake UK to a 49-35 lead at the half.  Devin Booker, who sometimes looks like the best shooter UK's ever had, went 3-3 from outside, scoring 15 points in only 21 minutes.  Tyler Ulis, who is already one of my favorite players, zipped up and down the floor with great aplomb, repeatedly torching UNC's efforts to pressure the ball.  He dished out 8 assists in almost 24 minutes, and reminded me of the critical difference between a good passer and a great passer.  Meanwhile, Willie Cauley-Stein and Dakari Johnson went 8-12 (!!) from the free throw line, as they put together the following line over their combined 40 minutes:  22 points, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks, 7 steals.  Those are Anthony Davis-like numbers.

All in all, I thought it was the best game the Cats have played all year -- even without Alex Poythress, who will be greatly missed, or Kyle Wiltjer, who looks unstoppable so far with Gonzaga.  On paper, UK's blowout win against Kansas is more impressive, but the Jayhawks missed a ton of open shots in that game.  Carolina was big, and fast, and talented, and I thought they played pretty well -- and they still lost by 14.  It is a tribute to the coaching staff and the depth of the UK team that the Cats looked so sharp against such a good team.

Of course, the huge crowd at Rupp was in ecstasies.  Lots of people complain about the crowds at Rupp, thinking that they should always exhibit the sort of emotion that you'd expect if Marshall County and Tilghman were playing for the Regional Final.  And I can see that point.  But to me, the Rupp fans are really great at picking their spots -- they have a great instinct for those games and moments when the team really needs a spark.  Just before tip-off, Matt Jones reported that the mood at Rupp felt different than usual -- as it should for a big game.

So the Cats are now 11-0, with a 32-point win over Kansas (currently ranked 10th by Ken Pomeroy), a 12-point win over Texas (9th), and a 14-point win over North Carolina (15th).  That's extremely impressive.

How to Listen to the Kentucky Radio Announcers During Basketball Games

If you're like me, watching UK basketball games is often a nerve-wracking experience -- and the last thing you want is to be distracted by television announcers who get excited when the other team starts to do well, or who spend the game rambling on about irrelevant matters (I'm looking at you, Dickie V).

For years, Kentucky fans have dealt with this issue by turning down the TV sound and listening to the UK radio broadcast. This move was particularly popular during the career of Cawood Ledford, the best radio announcer I have ever heard. Tom Leach and Mike Pratt, who do the games for UK now, are also an outstanding team -- and the TV announcers are more annoying than ever. But how do you get the TV picture to sync up with the radio broadcast? And what if you live far from Kentucky and can't get the broadcasts on your radio?

The solutions to these problems may vary depending on what kind of technology you have and where you live. But here is a simple solution for anyone who has two pieces of technology that are pretty popular these days: a smart phone and a TV that's connected to a digital video recorder:

1. Download the iHeart Radio app for your smart phone.

2. On the iHeart Radio app, you can get WLAP-AM out of Lexington. This is the flagship station for the Wildcats, and it carries every game -- as well as all pre-game and post-game shows. Because the signal takes a while to process through the smart phone app, it will run about 30-40 seconds behind the TV picture.

3. The radio broadcast will play through your phone. (You may want to put the phone in its docking station so that the battery won't run down. If you have a docking station that allows you to play music, the broadcast will come through loud and clear.)

4. Use your digital video recorder to pause the picture on your TV until it is precisely synced to the radio broadcast.

5. Enjoy the game!

6. If the Cats win, you'll probably want to listen for Coach Cal's comments in the post-game show. He is always entertaining after a victory.

Note: If you do not have a smart phone, you can also to go WLAP's web page and listen to the broadcast over your computer. There is less of a delay in listening over the web, so it might be a little trickier to sync the broadcast precisely with the TV. But if you're like me, that would still be better than listening to Dickie V go on and on about Duke and UNC when you're trying to watch the Cats.

Kentucky 86 - 64 Lamar (No. 2,064)

In my life, I have followed UK games under many different conditions. In 1979, I listened to UK's 101-100 win over Alabama in the SEC Tournament on a transistor radio in the midst of a raucous crowd watching Heath play Lone Oak in the Second District tournament. In 1986, I listened to UK's loss to LSU in the NCAA quarter-finals while riding in a car from Knoxville to Nashville. Last year, I listened to the UK-Arkansas game on a smart phone in a hotel room in Pittsburgh. I've gotten UK scores from SportsCenter, from the Internet, and from telephone calls. But I don't like following the Cats under such adverse circumstances. I want to be at home, in front of my TV, with Mike Leach and Tom Pratt on the radio.

This game was played while I was on pilgrimage to western Kentucky, in the lovely town of Marion, and it was on ESPNU -- a channel not broadcast on the local cable package. So the only way to watch the game was to boot up ESPN3 and hope that the picture would hold out long enough to see the action. About every two minutes or so, however, the picture would freeze -- usually with a UK shot hanging in mid-air -- and I quickly tired of this method. So I turned off the game with the Cats leading 25-14 and devoted my time to Holiday visitations. As a result, I have little to say about these proceedings, other than to note that Jones returned from his injury but was merely OK (9 points, six rebounds), that Lamar is actually quite a good team (they are heavy favorites in the Southland Conference), and that Calipari was quite unhappy with the Cats. This quote from Calipari was, I thought, as good a summary of UK basketball as we are likely to get all year:

"You can't hide here. This is Kentucky. There isn't a rock big enough, no cracks big enough. You're out there, and either you're going to perform or you're not, and there is no excuse why you're not. Like I said, we've got a ways to go."