Rating:

5.0 (1 vote)

It was a tale of two halves for the Cats and don't think Boston didn't notice.

"All I can say is that must have been one heck of a halftime speech," said Boston coach Patrick Chambers. "I'm going to have to ask him for a copy of that."

Chambers called Kentucky's 28-7 run a crushing blow to the team and it was.

"At half we wanted to get back to working on the things that we worked on the last couple days. We still didn't really communicate very well, and we did a much better job of that in the second half. I thought defensively we picked it up. We shared the ball, made the right plays in the second half, and that's something that we stress, also, and you can see that by the 21 assists. That was something that we really worked on," said UK assistant head coach John Robic, who handled the post game interviews for John Calipari.

"We were a little leery going into it because we thought we were a little selfish in the last game, that we would pass up shots, but we were happy with the distribution and the shots we took tonight."

Boston's coach called Josh Harrellson the "mother hen" of the team after his 12 point, 12 rebound performance.

"If he does the things that he's capable of doing, he's going to score some points and get some rebounds. We only run a couple things for him. He's getting better. So is Eloy (Vargas) in practice. Kenny Payne and Orlando (Antigua) have done a really good job of just simplifying things for these guys having them have one or two moves and nothing else, but he has that ability -- they both have the ability to knock down free throws if they get fouled, and like Josh hit that big three against Washington, also. But it's something we're not going to live and die with. You know what, for the first time being in a role like this, he's done well after six games," Robic said.

Doron Lamb provided a spark off the bench early. He finished the game with 13 points and five assists in 27 minutes. We don't know what Coach Cal thinks just yet, but Robic doesn't pull any punches on Lamb.

"Well, what he showed you, he needs to be on the court. He really knows how to play. We were impressed -- we were impressed how he guarded on-ball defense tonight. We put him on the point guard and moved Brandon off the ball, so that was something new for us, and he gives us a little bit better size in doing that, which is a nice little wrinkle for us. He knows how to score the ball. I mean, he knows how to play. He has a great feel for the game. We have to get him to be able to talk. That's the biggest drawback with Doron right now. If we can get him to talk, that again is another way to make our team much better," said Robic.

Now it's on to North Carolina and the coaches hope this was enough of a tune up.

"I think the biggest thing is that some things that we worked on, I think we got better in. There's some areas that we're going to have to address Thursday and Friday to get ready for that North Carolina game. Our transition defense is going to have to be a No. 1 key because they really play fast. Our post defense is going to have to be better than it was tonight because they're big and they force the ball low. And if they -- if we work on those areas, you know -- we need to address those area.
I think tonight we shared the ball well, and I thought we really guarded well, too, and especially in the half court," said Robic.

"It's going to be a big deal because you're going in front of, what, 22,000 people for the first time. We played on the road at Portland and there was 10,000 people, which was a nice crowd, but this is truly everybody in that building except for the 40 tickets that we get are going to be for the other team. It'll be interesting. I mean, those are the type of games that you play for and you coach for. I know our guys respect the other team, and it's going to be a challenge going on the road, but hopefully our guys are up for it."