Cal's kiddie corp lays whippin' on UT, 74-45

With Kentucky leading in the second half John Calipari told his charges during a timeout he wanted his team to win the game by 25 points. The youthful Wildcats took their coach's words to heart and ripped off a game ending 29-6 run over the final nine plus minutes to win by 29.

Kentucky led by 13 at the end of the first half. UT made the expected run to cut the lead to as few as six points with 9:32 remaining at 45-39.

Kentucky answered with an emphatic Patrick Patterson dunk off an assist by John Wall to answer the Vols and begin a 29-6 run. The run saw Tennessee hit just one field goal, a Kenny Hall dunk off a feed by J.P. Prince.

Tennessee came into the game with a plan to pack the defense behind the arc to stop DeMarcus Cousins and make Kentucky beat them from the perimeter. They failed miserably in their attempts to stop Cousins who scored 19 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, both game highs. Cousins could have scored more points, as he missed ten charity tosses in the game, many coming in the games first half.

While Cousins was having his way in the paint for the Wildcats Eric Bledsoe took care of business dialing up from long range to the tune of 5 of 8, leading the Cats to a commanding 8-2 advantage from behind the arc.

Kentucky owned the boards and out rebounded the Vols by 15 for the game, unofficially.

The Wildcats hit 52% from the field, including 36% from behind the arc. Defensively they clamped down on the Vols holding UT to under 31% from the field, and allowing UT to hit only 2 of 15 (13%) from behind the arc.

Kentucky was led by its fabulous trio of freshmen. John Wall, SEC Player of the Year, tallied 14 points, 9 assists and 6 rebounds. Bledsoe pitched in 17 points doing most of his damage from behind the arc.

Darnell Dodson scored eight points, including a pair of huge threes and Patrick Patterson had a quiet 4 points and six rebounds.

Patterson and Cousins combined to hold both Wayne Chism and Brian Williams, the starting post players for the Vols, to single digits.

Scotty Hopson was Tennessee's only double digit scorer with 11 points, but was only 1-5 from behind the arc.

The game featured four technical fouls as double technical fouls were called on Wayne Chism and Daniel Orton after a verbal altercation. Melvin Goins received a flagrant technical foul, which earned an ejection from the game, when he intentionally threw a forearm into the groin of Cousins. Cousins received a technical foul for jawing at Goins at the 3:33 mark.

Cousins hit both free throws off the flagrant technical and Wall then hit a driving layup to give the Cats a 62-43 lead. Kentucky outscored Tennessee 12-2 the rest of the way.