Auburn 53 - 68 Kentucky (No. 2,068)

When I was a kid, almost all SEC basketball games were played on either Wednesday or Saturday. Of course, we had church on Wednesday nights. The games would usually tip off at 7 P.M. Central time, and church would start at 7:30. So you could hear the first ten minutes or so on the radio, and then you'd have to go in for church. Just over an hour later, I would usually borrow my mother's keys and go sit in the car listening to the radio and waiting for my parents to finish talking to everyone. There would usually be about eight or nine minutes left in the game when I turned it on, and from the tone in Cawood's voice I could almost always tell how the Cats were doing. If they were at home, we were usually in pretty good shape. But if we were on the road, we often had a real battle ahead of us.

To give you a sense of what it was like, here were the Wednesday night SEC games in 1981, with the home team listed first:

01/07/81: Auburn 66 - 79 Kentucky (UK up 40-33 at the half)

01/14/81: Kentucky 64 - 55 Ole Miss (UK up 33-25 at the half)

01/21/81: Kentucky 102 - 48 Florida (UK up 52-26 at the half)

01/28/81: Kentucky 71 - 64 Mississippi St. (Tied 34-all at the half)

02/04/81: Kentucky 102 - 74 Auburn (UK up 39-24 at the half)

02/11/81: Ole Miss 55 - 62 Kentucky (UK up 20-19 at the half)

02/18/81: Florida 56 - 69 Kentucky (UK up 34-29 at the half)

02/25/81: Mississippi St. 74 - 79 Kentucky (UK up 40-36 at the half)

Now as it turns out, we won all of the Wednesday night games that year -- which was pretty unusual. But while a couple of the home wins were nice healthy blowouts (which Cawood and I both enjoyed), the road games were much more hard-fought -- you could never feel safe until the game was almost over.

The problem, of course, is that it's really, really hard to score in the paint on the road. Joe Hall, Tubby Smith, and Coach Cal all built their teams around tough defenses and strong interior play. But when you're on the road, facing a fired-up team playing a zone defense, those inside baskets are much more difficult to come by.

There was a brief period of relief in the 1990's, because Pitino built teams that could just shoot over the zone defenses -- and that kind of offense travels much better. Referees are more likely to let pushing and shoving go in the paint; they're not as willing to let you knock down Travis Ford. Plus, Pitino's scrambling style allowed the Cats to get more baskets in transition. For example, here were UK's four trips to Auburn from 1992 to 1998:

02/08/92: Auburn 67 - 85 Kentucky (UK goes 7-21 from three-point range)

01/30/94: Auburn 74 - 91 Kentucky (UK goes 7-18 from three-point range)

02/27/96: Auburn 73 - 88 Kentucky (UK goes 8-20 from three-point range)

02/25/98: Auburn 58 - 83 Kentucky (UK goes 10-25 from three-point range)

In those four games, UK made over 38 percent of its three-point shots, and they scored at least 80 points every time. Good times.

These days, however, we have to grind out our road wins in a more traditional manner. Tonight, the Cats actually did shoot 7-20 from three-point range, which isn't too bad. But their overall shooting was dreadful -- 23-57 for a shooting percentage of only 40.4 percent. And sure enough, when I got out of church tonight, the Cats trailed 24-23 late in the first half. And with 6:32 left in the game, UK led by only 49-47.

But I noticed last year that the teams that beat UK -- like Indiana this year -- tend to hit a lot of three's and build up big leads. Auburn went only 1-12 from three-point range, and could never get a decent lead against the Cats. Instead, the Tigers were staying in the game by dominating the boards. Down the stretch, however, UK cranked up both the defense and the rebounding. Over the last six-and-a-half minutes of the game, the Cats simply would not let Auburn score, and they outscored the Tigers 19-6. UK was still out-rebounded for the game (29-25), but they got almost all the big boards at the end.

Kidd-Gilchrist had a hard time breaking through the Auburn zone; he went 2-10 from the field and scored only 7 points. But Miller went 3-5 from three-point range, Teague went 2-3 from three-point range (!), and Davis went 6-9 from the field, including some of the most acrobatic tip-ins and dunks you'll ever see. (The fact that Davis, who was fouled on almost every play, shot only two free throws in the game was a travesty -- but that's life on the road.) The Cats also went 15-18 from the line; they are now making 71.5 percent of their free throws, which is above average. The biggest concern is rebounding; UK has been out-rebounded in both conference games so far. But I think that will change as our guys adjust to the athleticism in the SEC.

Most importantly, our young guys survived their first SEC road test, and we will hope that they understand how the games are played (and called) differently on the road. If they don't know that now, they will definitely know it after they spend Saturday afternoon in Knoxville.

Finally, congrats to Coach Cal on his 80th win with UK. His record with the Cats is now a blistering 80-13.