Kentucky 79 - 64 S. Carolina (No. 2,067)

Kentucky has beaten South Carolina 37 times since the Gamecocks joined the SEC, and to be honest I'm not sure I remember any of those games. (Over the same period, they've beaten us 9 times, and I remember those losses very well.) In short, I find this to be a dreary series. We never gain anything by beating South Carolina, and every time we lose to them, it's a big deal on SportsCenter.

Anyway, yesterday's game did not get a lot of attention on SportsCenter, and that's fine with me. The game had its moments. Marquis Teague played one of his best games as a Cat; 6-10 from the field (1-1 from three-point range), 17 points, 4 assists, and only 3 turnovers. I have never been as down on Teague as a lot of the nay-sayers -- my view is that he's potentially a very good point guard who can't make jump shots, and I was happy to see him playing well.

Of course, the bigger story was the return of Terrence Jones, who was excellent: 8-9 from the field and 3-5 from the line for 20 points. After all the nonsense about Jones's "attitude," I'm glad he had the chance to shut up his critics.

Teague and Jones will rightly get most of the attention, but this was an odd game that makes me wonder about Darrin Horn's plan for the Gamecocks. South Carolina came out with a typical road-team strategy at Rupp -- holding the ball for long possessions, packing in their defense, and generally trying to create a low-scoring game. This worked for about 10 minutes, after which UK's defense shut the Gamecocks down entirely. The Cats were up 34-18 at the half, and up 41-21 a few minutes into the second half. At this point, the game was effectively over and Carolina chucked its original plan. Instead, the Gamecocks re-invented themselves as a full-court pressing team that took the first available shot. This version of Carolina was much more effective: they were all over the floor, they started making shots from all over the place, and they actually outscored the Cats 46-45 in the second half. If I were a Carolina fan, I would wonder why they didn't play like that all the time.

Shooting note: The Cats went 5-11 from three-point range (45.5 percent) and 16-22 from the line (72.7 percent). Both figures are above the Cats' yearly averages (36.8 percent and 71.0 percent respectively).