UK alum Tom Leach has
been the play-by-play “Voice of the Wildcats” for the football Cats for 12
years and nine years for men’s basketball. He is a four-time winner of the
Kentucky Sportscaster of the Year award. Tom offers an entertaining and insightful
perspective into UK athletics. Column entries will be posted twice per week
through April. Read
Tom’s full biography
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Anytime Kentucky travels to Vanderbilt, the unconventional layout of Memorial
Gymnasium becomes one of the dominant storylines. That’s understandable now
because the Cats have lost four in a row there but former UK star Jim Master
says the current players need not get stressed out.
The Wildcat teams on which Master played won all five of their games there
(the final one being the 1984 SEC Tournament title game win over Auburn).
And Master shot better than 50 percent from the field in four of those games,
including a 12-for-16 performance en route to a 26-point night in 1983.
“I thought it was one of my favorite gyms to shoot in and I think Kentucky
might actually shoot better in this game,” Master told coachcal.com. “It’s
a great shooting gym, the way it’s light. Ofcourse the benches are at the end
but it never bothered us much. The way it’s lit and the way it’s conformed,
it’s more like a high school gym when you’re shooting the ball.”
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If the Cats can get a win at Vandy, it might bode well for their Final Four
chances. Of the 11 UK teams that reached the Final Four, eight of them played
an annual game at Memorial Gym. And only the 1993 team failed to get a win
there.
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ESPN’s Dick Vitale unveiled his picks for the Final Four this week and he
expects Kentucky to join Kansas, Syracuse and Purdue in Indianapolis.
Vitale, who will work the UK-Vandy game tomorrow night, says Kentucky has
made its improvement to this point on the defensive end. And he raves about
the rookie combo of John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins.
“The combination of Wall and Cousins is the best inside and outside freshman
combo I’ve seen since Jalen Rose and Chris Webber,” Vitale told tomleachky.com. “Two
guys that, no question, are rated top five by the NBA people.”
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Patrick Patterson is coming off one of his best games of the season in the
Cats’ overtime win at Mississippi State. Not only did he record his first double-double
since December 23, Patterson also played a pivotal role in the Cats’ rally
from seven points down in the final three minutes of regulation, with a block
that keyed a fastbreak layup and then hitting a game-tying baseline jumper
with about 30 seconds left.
Eventhough Patterson sometimes gets overshadowed by the attention lavished
on Wall and Cousins, former UK star and NBA executive Dan Issel says Patterson
remains a big-time NBA prospect.
“I’ve always loved Patrick. He’s reminded me since the day he got to
Kentucky of one of my favorite players–Antonio McDyess,” Issel said. “And
he’s done something this year that even Antonio couldn’t do when he got to
the NBA, which is make that (perimeter) jump shot. I think he’s going to be
a tremendous professional player.”
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Even this many months in the job as head coach of the UK men’s basketball
program, John Calipari can still be surprised by the fervor of the Big Blue
nation–such as the turnout for last week’s telecast of ESPN’s “College
Gameday” show at Rupp Arena.
“Let me just first of all thank the fans. It was incredible. To have
22,000 show up to show what Kentucky basketball is about, it just shows we’re
a cut above. The people at ESPN couldn’t believe it,” he said. “There’s
a lot of spinoff from it and not just financially. We’re trying to make sure
we’re not just having success for ourselves but for everybody else, too. If
it brings light to us, we try to steer it (to other programs). A program like
Kentucky is like that, Kansas is like that, North Carolina is like that.”
Calipari has been consistently comfortable in this intense spotlight and he
says it’s a matter of mindset.
“The fans want to be hugged, they want to be a part of it, they enjoy
the success and they take great pain when you lose. Either it overwhelms you
or you have fun with it and I’ve just decided to have fun with all of this.
I’ve been at outposts for 20 years,” he noted. “I’ve never been at
a BCS school, have the opportunity to go to football games and cookouts and
all that stuff. I just want to enjoy it.”
