It figures, the weekend I decide to step away from the blogosphere a bunch goes on. I guess that’s the great thing about UK Athletics is its unpredictability and constant action. There are rarely days off for any of us.Anyway, thought I’d run through the three biggest stories of the weekend while I was away for those of you that didn’t catch all the action.
– The biggest story of the weekend that unfortunately got overshadowed by the play of the basketball teams was the UK men’s tennis team. Thanks to a pair of upset wins by sophomore Alex Musialek and Alberto Gonzalez, the No. 14 Cats toppled No. 2 Virginia 4-3 on Saturday at the Hilary J.  Boone Tennis Complex. UK’s win snapped a 63-match winning streak for Virginia and improved the Cats to 5-1 on the season (the Cats moved on to 6-1 later that day with a 5-1 win over Eastern Kentucky). Expect UK to jump in the next Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings.- The No. 3/4UK men’s basketball team thumped LSU on Saturday by a count of 81-55. Freshman DeMarcus Cousins had 19 points and 13 rebounds for his sixth consecutive double-double and 10 players scored for the Wildcats, but the biggest thing to take out of Saturday’s game was the re-emergence of Patrick Patterson. The junior forward finished the game with a modest 16 points, but for the first time in a long time, Patterson appeared to be more assertive down low. There was a concentrated effort to put his butt in the paint and post up. As a result, we saw turnaround hooks, a couple of dunks and even more offensive rebounding opportunities for Cousins. Sure, Patterson launched a few 3-pointers and played on the perimeter, but for the first time this season we saw a total package of his newly honed game. Head coach John Calipari said after the win that Patterson is about 20 percent away from where he wants him to be. After the LSU game, imagine a Patterson at 100 percent.- Matthew Mitchell and Co. continues to roll on. They’re picking up so much momentum at this point that it isn’t unconceivable to think this team could win the Southeastern Conference title. Picked to finish 11th by the SEC coaches at the beginning of the year, the No. 18/20 Cats remained one game behind first-place Tennessee with a 71-57 victory over Arkansas on Sunday. The win improved UK to 8-2 in the league, the program’s best 10-game start in the SEC in school history. Nobody in the league is playing better than the duo of A’dia Mathies and Victoria Dunlap. Mathies, a freshman guard, went for a career-high 27 points Sunday, and Dunlap notched another double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds. Dunlap was named SEC Player of the Week for the second straight week for her performances against Ole Miss and Arkansas. Inexplicably, Mathies was somehow snubbed from SEC Freshman of the Week honors despite averaging 24.0 points per game.