John Clay's Sidelines

From press row at Rupp Arena:

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  Photo by Pablo Alcala.

  More after the press conferences.

• Patterson leads way with 28 points, 12 rebounds, six assists. Meeks scores 17; Harrellson 12. UK shot 52.3 percent. Longwood shot 30.3. Kentucky committed 13 turnovers in the second half, 19 for the game.

• Final: Kentucky 91, Longwood 57

• Mark Krebs hits a three to make it 89-53 Kentucky.

• Jared Carter, Mark Krebs and Landon Slone have are now in for the Cats.

• We have a Jared Carter sighting. He is at the scorer’s table to check in with 3:36 left, TV timeout. UK leads 83-51. Patterson departed with 28 points and 12 rebounds, plus six assists.

• Patterson goes out with 5:44 left. Will be interesting to see if he is done for the night.

• Cats cruising 79-40 with 7:58 remaining, and already fans are heading to the exits. Meeks is up to 17 points.

• UK up 72-37 with 11:42 left to play. Patterson now has a career-high 26 points. He’s 11 of 14 from the floor with 10 rebounds. (None in the second half.) UK is shooting 57.4 percent from the floor. Longwood is shooting 31.1 percent. Patterson’s previous high was 24 points against Tennessee Tech last season.

• Patterson back in at 13:51.

• Patterson hurts either foot or ankle at 15:20 and has to come out. Looks like tey’re working on his foot.

• Kentucky leads 59-32 with 15:22 left in the game. Patterson is stuck with 22 points and 10 rebounds. We joked that he got more rebounds at halftime than he has so far in the second half. UK is shooting 51.2 percent for game. The Cats are just three-of-14 from three-point range, however. Longwood is 8-of-18 from three.

• Longwood took its first free throw attempts with 16:28 left in game. Missed both.

• Harrellson starts for Stevenson and Harris for Miller in the second half.

• Kentucky has outrebounded the Lancers 28-14. They now have Patterson credited with 10 rebounds. He had nine on the stats monitor until just a few seconds ago.

• Ryan Bogan, the 6-1 senior, leads Longwood with 15 points.

• UK scoring: Patterson 22, Liggins 6, Harris 6, Meeks 5, Stevenson 4, Harrellson 4, Porter 3, Liggins 3, Miller 1.

• Kentucky leads 51-24 at halftime. Patterson leads way with 22 points and nine rebounds. UK shot an even 50 percent the first half.

• Meeks first field goal comes with 2:01 left in half.

• Correction from earlier, Longwood hit five threes in a four-minute span. Smith’s field goal was a two, not a three.

• E-mailer Mark wants Miller to quit picking up his dribble on the sideline.

• Kentucky leads 40-25 with 3:49 left in first half. Patterson has 16 points and five rebounds. Harrellson just picked up a foul out front on defensive end, Gillispie did an angry spin. Longwood has made six of 14 from beyond the three-point stripe. UK leads on the boards, 22-12.

• Galloway checks in with 4:08 left.

• Ryan Bogan has now made five of eight threes for Longwood.

• Billy G asks from time with 5:55 left as Longwood’s long bombers have cut the lead to 36-21. Longwood is now five of 13 from beyond the three-point stripe. The visitors have made all five in the last four minutes.

• Kentucky lead is 33-16 with 6:56 left in half, but truth be told the Cats have grown a bit sloppy. A 13-0 run had given them a 31-7 advantage. Since then, Longwood has actually outplayed the home team. Kentucky turnover count is up to five. Harris has missed a pair of open three-pointers from the right corner. Longwood is now shooting 26.1 percent.

• Patterson now has 14 of UK’s 29 points in a 29-7 lead. The center is 6-of-7 from the floor and two-of-two from the line. He’s fighting around the basket much harder tonight. Looks much more like the old Pat.

• Cats are on a 9-0 run, and lead 27-7 with 11:53 left in the first half. Kentucky has made 10 of 15 shots. Not only is Gillispie up off the bench  more for this game, he is running subs in and out. The rotation has stayed the same, but players are being run in and out more frequently. Longwood has made just three of 13 shots for 23.1 percent from the floor. The visitors are one for six from the three-point line.

• Gillispie is up off the bench coaching much more in this game.

• Patterson just took a nasty spill at the defensive end, finally got up, but didn’t follow the ball back upcourt. He told coaches he was ok. But Longwood, luckily, just called timeout with 12:39 left. UK leads 24-7. Cats have made nine of 14 shots. Patterson has 12 points.

• Ramon Harris checks in at 13:29. UK leads 20-7.

• Probably UK’s best stretch of the season, up now 15-5 with 15:19 left in half. Patrick Patterson much more active around the goal. The sophomore center has seven of the Cats’ 15 points. UK has made five of its first seven shots. Josh Harrellson checked in at 16:41, and scored off a feed from Patterson, who had stolen the ball in the backcourt.

• Michael Porter got the hook 35 seconds into the game, after a miscommunication between he and Darius Miller. Pass went into the backcourt, and up off the bench came DeAndre Liggins.

• There are a lot of empty seats here. A lot of empty seats.

• Officials are Tim Nester, Jerry Heater and Tim Kelly.

• UK is starting Darius Miller instead of Ramon Harris. He joins Michael Porter, Jodie Meeks, Perry Stevenson and Patrick Patterson.