Men’s basketball quick hits and quick thoughts

As I’m sure you know, the UK men’s basketball team has a little game (sarcasm) on Saturday against Louisville. The Cats (14-0) enter the game flying as high as they’ve ever been in recent memory. They’re off to their best start since the 1977-78 season, they’re No. 3 in the country and are favored to beat their rival for the first time in awhile.

But I’m pretty confident in saying I do not believe this game will be lopsided. The fact of the matter is, it’s a rivalry game. I agree with UK head coach John Calipari when he said today he believes Louisville will play their best game of the season on Saturday. That’s just how rivalries work. Watch a game when Duke plays North Carolina. It doesn’t matter what the two teams are ranked, who they have on their team or what their record is, the game is always extremely competitive, high energy and close. I expect this one to be similar.

What won’t help the Cardinals is the fact that freshman guard Peyton Siva is doubtful for the game. At a press conference on Friday, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino said Siva will make the trip but he doesn’t know if he’ll play or not. Siva has missed practices recently with the stomach flu. He’s averaging 4.6 points and 2.1 assists per game.

As for the game in the stands. Well, that should be interesting. With what happened this offseason with Pitino, I’m expecting some nasty chants and heckles to rain down from the Rupp Arena seats. Calipari has asked the fans to stay classy, but honestly that’s like asking John Wall not to run fast – not gonna happen.

It should be a good game and it should be a fun game. For UK, a win would put them at 15-0, their best start since the  1969-70 season where they also started 15-0, a perfect non-conference schedule and most importantly to them, a win over their rival for the first time since the 2006-07 season.

For Louisville, the win would help erase the painful memories of home losses to Charlotte and Western Carolina and would give them bragging rights throughout the state despite not having the ranking or record the Cats do.

UK Notes

Here’s a couple notes from today’s press conference from Calipari.

- He said he believes Louisville will take 25-30 threes – minimum

- Calipari said he likes how the Cats have experienced many different things this year including different defenses, and being down 9-2 at home to UNC, up 12-0 against Connecticut and being down on the road against Indiana.

- Calipari said freshman guard Eric Bledsoe is fine and will start Saturday.

- Calipari on Louisville sophomore center Samardo Samuels, “He’s their guy … He’s as good as they get. He’ll be the toughest big man we’ve played.” Samuels leads the Cardinals in points (16.4) and rebounds (7.6).

Southeastern blues

The road to a Southeastern Conference championship for UK might have just gotten a little easier.

First, it was announced that South Carolina junior forward Mike Holmes had been dismissed from the team for a repeated violation of team rules. Holmes was averaging 11 points and 4.8 rebounds for the Gamecocks. His loss is the latest for a Gamecocks team that many predicted at the beginning of the season would compete for an NCAA Tournament birth.

South Carolina lost senior forward Dominique Archie for the season in November with a knee injury.

Then came word that four Tennessee basketball players are facing felony gun and misdemeanor drug charges.

Star senior forward Tyler Smith is one of those players. Melvin Goins, Brian Williams and Cameron Tatum were the other players. The four players, who all average over five points per game, were arrested during a Friday morning traffic stop near Tennessee’s campus, according to the story by the Associated Press.

Now I don’t know what’s going to happen to these players and I’m going to wait for the legal process to go through, but that doesn’t sound good at all if you’re a Volunteers fan. If Smith can’t play it would be a monumental blow to that team.