Notes from Kentucky’s 71-42 win over Delaware State:
- The 42 points is the fewest allowed by Kentucky since 83-35 win over Texas Southern on Nov. 24, 2007.
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Photo by Mark Cornelison.
Delaware State averaged 0.651 points per possession, lowest against the Cats since Texas Southern’s 0.522.
- Delaware State made just one-of-nine three-pointers, fewest by a UK opponent since High Point made 1-of-15 on Nov. 29, 2005.
- UK opponents had made 21-of-44 threes in the first two games.
- Delaware State had just five assists, compared to 22 turnovers. That turnover ratio of -17 is the worst since Texas Southern’s -19 (four assists/23 turnovers).
- Kentucky turned it over a season-low 12 times. The Cats averaged a turnover every 5.47 possessions, best of the year. The avearge was 3.75 against VMI and 2.64 versus North Carolina.
- Kentucky averaged 1.081 points per possession, slightly behind its 1.100 against VMI.
- Kentucky made nine of 17 three-point attempts for 52.9 percent. That’s the best showing, percentage-wise, since the Cats made 10 of 18 against Florida in the regular-season finale last year for 55.6 percent.
- UK had 93.7 possessions versus VMI. The Cats had 65.7 possessions versus Delaware State. The figure was 74 at North Carolina.
- Michael Porter made two three-pointers, his best showing since making two at Auburn on Feb. 6, 2008. Porter was two-of-three against Auburn. He was two-of-four today.
- Perry Stevenson’s 12 minutes was his lowest total since Feb. 12, 2008 at Vanderbilt.
- Jodie Meeks has made 26 of 62 shots through three games.
- Darius Miller played a career-high 33 minutes and scored a career-high 13 points.
- After it was speculated that DeAndre Liggins might start, the freshman played 16 minutes, his fewest of the season.
- Josh Harrellson’s 15 minutes equaled his total for the first two games.
Kentucky won the game but looked pretty marginal doing it. Passes were not crisp and there were many that were ill-advised but ended up not being turnovers because Delaware State just wasn’t that adept. Guys tended to stand around – there wasn’t nearly enough offensive movement. There wasn’t much in the way of offensive rebounding especially given that Delaware St. was so much smaller. Shooting 45% against a team that was so much less athletically gifted isn’t going to get it done. Gillispie takes guys out but you never ever see him going over and teaching the player he took out, explaining what he did wrong. The deal with Galloway was ridiculous. I see very little in the way of teaching from Coach. You adapt, you teach, you lay a fundamentally solid foundation for the future whether you have your players or not and expect to see improvement of some kind. So far I see no improvement. After the performances we have witnessed this year, Gillispie’s 2nd year at UK, I’d like to know how many folks think that UK ought to be exploring other options. Don’t give any excuses such as these are not Gillispie’s players. You go with what you’ve got and make the best of it. Besides the players on the roster are not exactly flotsam. There are some very good players at UK. I invite discussion.