Another Long Season for Kentucky Basketball

Kentucky fans had to have a little bit of optimism coming into this season. After running Tubby Smith out of town to Minnesota, the Kentucky faithful had a new leader in Billy Gillespie. Gillespie had lots of success as Texas A&M and seemed like a solid choice to lead the blue nation. Furthermore the Wildcats were able to recruit their freshman sensation Patrick Patterson. But with a 4-3 start to the season it's beginning to look like a long year for Wildcat fans.

In the past week or so Kentucky has lost two games to two top twenty five teams. On their home court they played #1 North Carolina. The Wildcats appeared to be inspired playing close for much of the second half. But in the second half the Tarheels took over and won the game easily by double digits. Then the Wildcats traveled to Bloomington to face the Hoosiers. The #15 ranked Hoosiers figured to be a more realistic challenge. However Kentucky trailed virtually the entire game and they were blown out in the end. Add this to a dismal performance early in the year against Gardner-Webb and you have a team no longer in the top 25 and well on their way to a long season.

Watching the wildcats their seems to be a consistent theme. Lack of scoring. This team struggles to put the ball in the hoop. This is kind of surprising considering some of the veterans they have. Joe Crawford and Ramel Bradley are both experienced players who have shown at times they can score points. However these two seem to have more bad games than good. They are streaky shooters at best. Most of Kentucky's scoring seems to come from freshman Patrick Patterson who is perhaps the lone bright spot on this team right now. Patterson however gets little help inside in terms of scoring from his teammates.

Kentucky has had to key injuries to note. Sophomores Jodie Meeks and Derrick Jasper are both currently down with injuries. These players both had good freshman campaigns and figured to be a big part of the Kentucky team this year. There absence not only takes away potential points but also ball handling. Meeks in particularly showed great signs last year of being a scorer and a solid shooter from the outside.

Kentucky may have a slight glimpse of hope due to the lack of depth this year in the SEC. This is certainly a down year for the conference with teams like Florida, Vanderbilt and Alabama all losing key players last year. For Kentucky to succeed however they will need to get some help for their star freshman Patterson. Players like Crawford and Bradley will have to step up and score consistently if this team is going to win games.

Look for Kentucky to finish middle of the pack this year in the SEC. Gillespie is a good coach but until he gets some solid help for Patterson, Kentucky fans will have to wait to return to their glory of yesterday. I only hope Patterson decides to stick around long enough, to see this happen.