
You can credit Edgar Sosa’s 26-foot bomb that gave Louisville its 7-471 win over Kentucky on Sunday. You can harp on the ‘Ville’s surprisingly accurate 55 percent shooting from three-point land – previous season-best was 47.8 versus Ohio University. You can blame the Billy Gillispie technical foul that squelched his own team’s momentum. You can cite a dozen reasons for the Cats loss at Freedom Hall.
But it really boils down to one.
The same one.
Turnovers.
Same old story, same old song and dance. Broken record, yes, but it’s also true that until Kentucky cuts down on its viral tendency to turn the ball over, this ’08-09 edition will never reach its full potential, and Sunday presented a definite example as to why, or why not.
Kentucky shot 46.9 percent. Louisville shot 46.8 percent. Kentucky made 23 field goals. Louisville made 22 field goals. Kentucky made 19 of 22 free throws. Louisville made 19 of 23 free throws. Those numbers seem to suggest that the difference in the game was the fact the Cards made 11 of 20 three-pointers, while Kentucky was just six of 16 from beyond the stripe. And there is no doubting the significance of that.
But here’s the thing. Coming in, a reasonable Kentucky concern was rebounding. Talking to Mike Pratt before the game, the UK radio analyst expressed a fear that the Cats might be bludgeoned on the boards. A legitimate fear. Louisville had outrebounded its last eight opponents. The better teams had battered the Cats on the boards. UK lost the boards by 14 to North Carolina, by 19 to Kansas State, by 13 to West Virginia, even by 7 to Indiana.
But the Cats didn’t lose the boards Sunday. They actually whipped Louisville 32-22 on the glass. Even better, the Cats pulled down twice as many offensive rebounds (14-7) as did the host Cardinals. Louisville had 15 defensive rebounds, which means there were 29 available rebounds on the U of L end of the floor UK’s offensive end. Amazingly, Kentucky got nearly 50 percent of those boards.
John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky and graduate of UK, he covered UK football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. He lives in Lexington with his wife and two sons. You can e-mail him at jclay@herald-leader.com.
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