Gillespie Wins His First!!!

The Kentucky Wildcats started their season on the right foot tonight with a 67-40 victory over Central Arkansas in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic.

Joe Crawford led all scorers with 20 points in only 18 minutes of playing time. Joe didn't start the game, but he sure made a difference when he got on the floor. Mark Coury played out of his mind. Coury finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds in 36 minutes. Coury contributed a lot more than just numbers, though. He was the Wildcats low post presence for most of the first half with Patterson on the bench with foul trouble. Ramel Bradley was the 3rd leading scorer for the Cats with 10 points in 30 minutes.

The Wildcats looked out of sync when the game started. Mark Coury basically carried Kentucky in the beginning by scoring 10 of the Wildcats first 12 points. Patrick Patterson got 2 early fouls and went to the bench before he ever really got a chance to get a feel for the game. When Crawford finally got on the floor everything started to come together and the Wildcats started to pull away.

I was surprised to see Jared Carter on the floor for the Wildcats because I had heard that he was still having problems with his shoulder. Carter only played 2 minutes, though.

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Overall I was pretty pleased with what I saw. I don't think we should expect Kentucky to contend for the SEC title this year, but I saw some good things.

The Wildcats had 10 players who saw more than 10 minutes of action in the game. I was worried that the bench might be a little short with Harris and Jasper out with injuries, but that didn't seem to be the case. I thought Gillespie did a nice job of rotating players and sticking with the hot hands.

I was really impressed with what I saw from Alex Legion. Alex only played 13 minutes and scored 6 points but I swear I saw flashes of Derek Anderson in his game. That is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Mark Coury also impressed the hell out of me. Mark hustled all over the floor. Speaking of reminding me of somebody, I saw a little Gimel Martinez in Coury's game tonight. Good things will happen for UK if we can get that kind of hustle from Coury all year.

Patrick Patterson never seemed to really get a feel for the game tonight but he did show flashes in the 2nd half. I'm sure he will improve greatly as the season goes on.

Jodie Meeks had an off night only scoring 5 points, all from the free throw line. I'm not worried about Jodie, we all know what he can do.

Michael Porter played 24 minutes and didn't score any points. He passed up quite a few shots for some reason. He didn't score, but he put some good defensive pressure on the ball.

Mike Williams played 19 solid minutes. Williams only scored 4 points and had 5 rebounds but he gave Kentucky a solid presence in the lane. I was pleased with his performance.

Ramel Bradley turned in a solid performance as well. He only had 10 points in 30 minutes but he played hard on offense and defense.

Perry Stevenson played 11 minutes and gave UK a spark off the bench with a real nice dunk for his only basket of the game.

Freshman Kerry Benson played 14 minutes and hit a nice 3 pointer. I thought Kerry played well.

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Kentucky will face Gardner-Webb tomorrow night at 9:00 pm Eastern. The game is scheduled to air on ESPNU.