Men Still #1, Women Slip to #7

Well our beloved Cats fared well during the start of the final SEC stretch which is the toughest part of the SEC schedule for us. After handling Florida with ease at Rupp, the cats went down to Nashville for what many thought might be UK's first SEC loss. Turns out, it wasn't. While the game didn't go exactly like I expected (I thought Vandy would jump out fast and play good in the beginning), the Dores' came out hot in the second half and chipped at our 36-23 half time lead until they finally took the lead themselves and led 63-61 with 4:09 left in the second half. Doron Lamb then proceeded to nail a 3-pointer and give us the lead again for good.

Vandy certainly wanted the win and thought they would come out the victor. Their players talked about headlines after the game would state things such as "#1 UK Falls" and "Memorial Magic Strikes Again". Who could blame them for their hope considering they had beaten the last 4, #1 teams to come into Memorial Gym. Like I said last week, put this game in early January and Vandy probably wins. Our team is different than the team that Indiana beat though and we weren't going to let the 'Memorial Magic' or Kryptonite as I think of it affect us this year. It was a fun, yet stressful, game to watch and now we move on with Florida and Mississippi State both on their home courts left as the main hurdles for our perfect SEC season record.

One would think after the wins last week that all of the voters would finally give in and vote UK #1 but like with previous weeks, two AP poll voters are still holding out and putting Syracuse as #1 giving us 63 of the total 65 votes. The coaches have already given in though and have been giving us all 31 first place votes in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll.

UK HOOPS
The Lady Cats slipped in the polls a little into the #7 spot in both polls after their loss to LSU on Feb 5th. After a week off, they know face what will certainly be a tough challenge as they go to Knoxville to play the # 11 Lady Vols (8-3 SEC, 17-7 overall). This certainly is a winnable game for us since we beat them in Memorial when they came up here and UT already has two home losses this year to Baylor and South Carolina. With a week to rest and coming off a loss we should have a good shot at beating UT. It probably won't be an easy fight, especially with UT coming off a recent loss to Vandy themselves but look for Mitchell's squad to be back on track and complete the utter domination of UT tonight. Think about that. If we beat UT tonight then we will have beaten them in football, twice in men's basketball, and twice in women's basketball.

Catch UK Hoops big game tonight @7 on ESPN2.