Fifty random notes to get you ready for UK-UT

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Fifty random notes to know about today’s Kentucky-Tennessee semifinal in the SEC Basketball Tournament.

The first 20:

Kentucky last played Tennessee in the SEC Tournament in 2005. Tubby Smith’s Cats beat Buzz Peterson’s Vols 76-62. That was Peterson’s final game as the Tennessee coach.
“If you see somebody not wearing blue or orange in here, you wonder if they’re in the wrong place,” UT senior forward Wayne Chism told Wes Rucker of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Bobby Maze told Chris Low of espn.com: “I’m looking around at all that blue and thinking, ‘Aren’t we in a city in Tennessee?’ ” Maze said. “I knew a lot about their tradition, but I didn’t know how much Kentucky traveled. I had no idea they were going to book every hotel, that they were going to book all the clubs, all the events and buy up all the tickets. I mean, they travel like the Million Man March.“
Kentucky is 34-2 in SEC Tournament semifinal games.
This is the first time UK has reached the SEC semifinals since 2006.
Kentucky is 6-3 against Tennessee on neutral sites.
UK’s Eric Bledsoe played 36 minutes without a turnover in the Cats’ 73-67 win over Alabama on Friday. That’s only the second time this year Bledsoe has gone an entire game without turning the ball over. He played 23 minutes without a turnover against Connecticut at Madison Square Garden back on Dec. 9.
DeMarcus Cousins has scored just 21 points in his last three games. He has taken just 15 shots, making seven, in that span.
After making five of seven shots against Florida, Darius Miller made just one of six against Alabama.
Patrick Patterson’s 20 points Friday was his highest output since he scored 23 against South Carolina on Feb. 25.
Patterson is a perfect 14-of-14 from the foul line over his last three games.
Patterson did not get a rebound until there was 7:56 left in the game on Friday.
Perry Stevenson’s four points on Friday was his highest output since he scored six against Arkansas on Jan. 23.
Kentucky scored 46 points in the paint against Alabama.
The Cats shot 63.6 percent the second half on Friday.
Ray Melick of the Birmingham News figured it this way: “But what Kentucky did do, and what Kentucky seems to do better than anybody else in the country, is make short shots. The shorter the better. The Wildcats outscored the Tide 46-26 in the paint. Over the course of 40 minutes, Kentucky made only two baskets from outside the lane, hitting 23 of 31 shots from within 5 feet for 74.1 percent.“
Alabama had three different players with at least 10 rebounds against Kentucky.
Tennessee’s Wayne Chism had 16 points and 15 rebounds in the Vols’ quarterfinal win over Ole Miss.
It was Chism’s seventh double-double of the year.
Chism played 36 minutes each against LSU on Thursday and Ole Miss on Friday.

Now 30 more:

Wayne Chism

Chism has 33 points and 26 rebounds in his two SEC tourney games this year.
Chism has a career average of 10 points and 5.5 rebounds against Kentucky.
J.P. Prince of Tennessee scored 17 points, and did not turn the ball over in 22 minutes.
Cameron Tatum came off the bench to score 15 points in 29 minutes for the Vols.
Tatum hit all four of his three-point attempts in the first half.
The Vols committed just eight turnovers against Ole Miss.
Tennessee had 10 steals on Friday.
Bruce Pearl: “The closer we get to the basket, the better we look.”
Tennessee will be playing its third game in three days today. The Vols beat LSU on Thursday before eliminating Ole Miss on Friday.
Pearl on Scotty Hopson: “He clearly doesn’t have confidence shooting the ball in this building.”
Hopson has made just two of 19 shots in the tournament thus far.
More Pearl: “Kentucky is the best. They are the best team here.”
Kentucky’s DeAndre Liggins after the Friday win: “After the game, everbody was acting like we had lost.“
Sixteen of John Wall’s game-high 23 points came in the second half on Friday.
Wall has made 19 of 32 shots over his last three games.
Bruce Pearl is now 5-4 in SEC Tournament games. John Calipari is 1-0.
J.P. Prince on Pearl and Calipari: “They’re best friends.” (He was kidding.)
Mike Griffith of the Knoxville News-Sentinel points out that Tennessee is 24-0 this year when it shoots better than its opponent.
Kentucky was 1-of-13 from three-point range in its win over Alabama. The Cats were 1-of-10 from three in their first-round SEC Tournament win over Ole Miss last year.
The Cats made just 1-of-9 threes in first half on Friday, then went 0-of-4 in the second.
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Kentucky has made 91 of 374 threes over its last 10 games for 24.3 percent.
The Cats are 6-1 when they make less than 20 percent of their threes.
In its last nine games, Tennessee has held opponents to 27 percent from the 3, reports Ray Glier in the New York Times.
Glier also reports that Pearl’s orange cashmere sportscoat costs $3,000.
The Cats averaged 1.077 points per possession against Alabama. The Crimson Tide averaged 1.016.
Alabama grabbed 21 of an available 46 offensive rebounds against UK. That’s 45.7 percent. Kentucky grabbed just eight of an available 32 offensive boards. That’s 25 percent.
Kentucky trailed Tennessee by 19 in Knoxville before tying the game at 65-65, then failing to score again.
E-mail from Doug: “John, I hope Pearl was kidding about the UK fans rivaling the UT fans as the best in the country. UK doesn’t play in empty arenas here or around the U.S. like they do. We set records for attendance on the road and at home no matter who we play. He’s dreaming.”
After playing just seven minutes against Florida, DeAndre Liggins played 14 against Alabama.
Bruce Pearl is 4-6 vs. Kentucky.