Basketball notes for Dec. 28

Cousins is Freshman of the Week
DeMarcus Cousins, come on down!

Cousins is the latest UK freshman basketball player to win the Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week award. Cousins is the third Cat to win the award. Teammates Eric Bledsoe and John Wall won the award earlier this season.

The Cats have made the weekly honor more of a team award than a conference award this season. Bledsoe won the award the first week, and Wall then won the award for four consecutive weeks before Mississippi forward Reginald Buckner won the award last week.

Cousins won the award after averaging 16.5 points and 11.5 rebounds in the Cats’ two victories over Drexel and Long Beach State. Cousins played only 27 minutes in the two games combined this past week – less than three-fourths of one game – but scored 33 points and grabbed 23 rebounds. After struggling with his free throws at the beginning of the season, Cousins has hit 22 of his last 23 free throw attempts, including a streak of 22 consecutive makes.

The Cats have won the SEC Freshman of the Week in six of the seven weeks it has been awarded this season. Junior forward Patrick Patterson was also named the SEC Player of the Week earlier this season and Wall was named National Player of the Week once.

Cats stay at No. 3
The Associated Press top 25 college basketball rankings remained steadfast at the top.

The top eight teams all remained in order with Kansas (11-0) at No. 1, followed by Texas (11-0), UK (13-0), Purdue (11-0), Syracuse (12-0), West Virginia (10-0), Duke (9-1) and Villanova (11-1).

Michigan State’s loss to Texas on Dec. 22 dropped the Spartans (9-3) from No. 9 to No. 11. North Carolina (9-3) and Connecticut (9-2) were the beneficiaries of the loss, moving up to No. 9 and No. 10, respectively.

Tennessee (9-2) at No. 14 and Ole Miss (10-2) at No. 16 join UK as the only SEC schools in the AP top 25. Florida (8-3) fell from No. 18 to just outside of the top 25 at No. 30. The Gators are currently on a three-game losing streak with losses to Syracuse, Richmond and South Alabama.

In the ESPN/USA Today poll, UK is No. 3 and Tennessee is No. 14, but Ole Miss is No. 21 and Florida is No. 26.