Monthly Archive for November, 2007

The Shaw Smith Brotherhood: Tar Heel Predictions, Patterson and Meeesta Carter

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on November 30, 2007
in The Shaw Smith Brotherhood
. 0 Comments

The Fake Gimel Martinez comes from a real-life family of UK fans. This season Fake Gimel will share some of the conversations he has with his real-life father (pseudonym: Big Floppin’ Rob Locke) and his uncle (pseudonym: Uncle Roger Hardin) in this “The Shaw Smith Brotherhood” column. You can join in on the family’s discussion by posting in the comments. Enjoy!

Predictions for Saturday’s North Carolina Game

Fake Gimel:

Let’s start with your UNC game prediction. Give me a final score, and your Wildcat player of the game.

Big Floppin’ Rob Locke:

I watched UNC play last night and I predict that they will beat us by 40 points, unless Billy releases some of his reigns. If he does it might be a closer game but UNC will prevail.

Uncle Roger Hardin:

I think UNC will win by 25 points. I think that Coach [Billy] will have them ready to play and the players and the fans will be fired up. But I think UNC has superior talent and I don’t think we can stop Hansbrough. He hasn’t had a good game against us and I think he is due.

Player of the Game for the Cats… A J Stewart, if he can stay awake and get into the game, I think his quickness may help us in the high post on offense against the 2-3 zone. After the last game, you know they will play zone against us until we prove we can score off of it. If we have a shooting game like the last one, then UNC by 40.

Fake Gimel:

I think its going to be closer than you guys think. UNC has talent but they seemed a little sluggish against Ohio State’s pressure defense on Wednesday. And I think our pressure D looked better than what the Buckeyes gave UNC. The biggest concern is individual on-ball defending, because the Tar Heels’ guards will be looking to shake free and create penetration passing opportunities.

I have *never* seen a UK freshman forward play defense like Patrick Patterson. Of course, we’ve played some pretty lower-tier teams. If Patrick can keep himself in position, play Hansbrough straight-up and (most importantly) doesn’t get quick fouls, I think our chances for pulling off the upset are good.

If the ESPN anchor uses “North Carolina escapes Lexington with a win”, I’ll be happy. But I really think we can pull off an upset. Let’s say Wildcats 68, Tar Heels 65. Player of the Game is Patterson with around 17 points, double-digit rebounds and over 5 assists.

Continue reading ‘The Shaw Smith Brotherhood: Tar Heel Predictions, Patterson and Meeesta Carter’

Tyler Hansbrough’s Many Successes

Published
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The Fake Gimel Martinez
on November 29, 2007
in Billy: Year One
. 0 Comments

Wildcat fans know about North Carolina F/C Tyler Hansbrough. What they may not know is that Tyler is a very dominant player. I’m sure that we’ve heard about his good stats during the ESPN clip packages, but we’ve never really seen him do well against Kentucky. He’s had 6 and 7 points in the last two games — and did not play his freshman year.

One of the (few) highlights of the year thus far for Kentucky fans has been Patrick Patterson’s outstanding play. Not only can he pluck the ball easily out of the air and finish in the post, he has shown exceptional defensive footwork and smart defensive play. If Patterson continues the defensive tradition set by Randolph Morris on Hansbrough — admittedly, that is a big if — some Kentucky fans may not believe the stories of Tyler’s success from mainstream media.

To reassure Kentucky fans that Tyler is a successful player, I’ve complied a short list of some of his many accomplishments during his tenure at North Carolina:

Watch your sack, Pat.

Ring the Bell, School’s Back In

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on November 8, 2007
in Billy: Year One, Current BMOC and Postgame
. 18 Comments

MC Hammer says to break it down

So we lost to Gardner-Webb. In the post-game press conference, Coach Gillispie said “[The Wildcats] look like they got whipped to me.” I think they got taken to school, and thank Basketball Heavens for that.

Jerry Tipton mentions in his blog that after Tuesday’s game with Central Arkansas, Billy said that Gardner-Webb was the kind of team “that could expose the Cats.” Gardner-Webb played the kind of team-committed basketball that Gillispie preaches. Instead, our Kentucky players looked like a bunch of guys who had been playing out at the Blue Courts in front of Wildcat Lodge; tired from holding court for a couple of hours and ready to get knocked off by an inferior team. There was little passion on the defensive end. What passion showed up on the offensive end was not smartly used.

It seems like this Wildcat team has a lot to learn. “You can’t just show up on the court and think you’re going to beat somebody because you wearing a certain jersey,” Gillispie mentioned in the post-loss press conference. This seemed to echo what Ramel Bradley said post-game:

“We learned a lot of lessons tonight. We watched them move the ball well, help on defense, run the floor and go hard. These are all lessons we needed to learn. This is a wake up call for us. Just because our jersey says Kentucky across the front doesn’t make it an automatic win for us. We have to play with more pride. This is a blessing in disguise.”

Something tells me that Ramel is repeating what his coach told him in the locker room immediately after the loss. Repetition is a decent way to learn things, like multiplication tables. However, sometimes the only way you learn is by trying and failing. Or maybe in this case, half-assing and failing.

Sometimes you learn by embarrassment. The Big Blue Nation was so ready to start roaring about our pre-season ranking that we didn’t see the signs in this early season — a team still feeling itself and its new coaching staff out. Nothing like a nice public whipping by a small North Carolina school to bring you back to earth.

By RPI rankings, this may be the worst home loss of modern times. But I do not believe we fans should be acting like its the end of the grand tradition of University of Kentucky basketball. The long-term consequences of this loss only occurs in March if Kentucky is on the bubble. And I’d rather worry about March in March, not just two weeks into the season. (Besides, what if Gardner-Webb wins 20 games and their conference? This loss will still be bad, but not nearly as terrible as it is now.)

As for the Wildcat players, they should be thanking the NCAA rules that Billy can’t run them any harder than he’s going to run him the next couple of weeks. They may learn to appreciate their class and tutor time, since they’ll be able to sit down. My guess is they’ll be learning more than that.