Louisiana St. 50 - 74 Kentucky (No. 2,073)

For the last few months, UK has been consistently performing just at or below the level predicted by Ken Pomeroy's formula. For example, the Cats were supposed to beat Alabama by nine points; they won by six. They were supposed to beat Georgia by 14 points; they won by 13. So when I saw that they were supposed to beat LSU 70-61, I figured we were in for a long afternoon.

But instead, UK actually did much better than expected. In a game with only 57 possessions, the Cats scored 74 points, which is a remarkably good pace. Meanwhile, their defense held the Tigers to only 50 points and the Cats had their third double-digit conference road win of the year.

Why did the Cats do so much better than projected? Well, for one thing Darius Miller and Marquis Teague went 5-9 from three-point range. In fact, the Cats went 7-15 (46.7 percent) from behind the arc, which is well above their usual average. We said a couple of weeks ago that one potential area for improvement was in UK's three-point shooting, and the Cats are shooting it better. In seven SEC games, UK has made 40.4 percent of its three-point attempts, which is excellent.

The other big change for UK was Terrence Jones, who has struggled with his scoring for the last month or so, but who absolutely destroyed the Tigers. In 30 minutes of a very slow-paced game, Jones went 10-16 from the field, 7-8 from the line, and finished with 27 points and 9 rebounds. His performance on the boards paced UK to a 39-29 rebound advantage, which is great for a conference road game.

If Jones, Teague, and Miller play like they did today, the Cats are extremely difficult to beat, because Anthony Davis continues to look like a young Bill Russell -- despite the brutality he dealt with today. LSU is almost always a dirty team, but even by their standards their treatment of Davis was remarkably thuggish. At one point early in the second half, Davis had a breakaway for a slam dunk but he was slammed to the ground by Malcolm White in one of the dirtiest plays I have ever seen. White literally grabbed Davis's shoulders and threw him down, forcing him to land on his back. It was so bad that White was actually thrown out of the game -- the first time I can ever remember seeing an SEC opponent ejected on his home floor. Remarkably, Davis stayed in the game. But in the first half he had to go out for a few minutes after being knocked down and kneed in the head. And later in the second half, someone hit him in the face while he was dunking a missed shot. Neither of those plays even resulted in a foul, which is much more typical of SEC officiating. Despite all of these difficulties, Davis never complained, never pouted, never stopped playing hard. In fact, he went 6-6 from the field, and finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

This does not excuse LSU or the officials for not doing a better job of ensuring that LSU played basketball instead of mixed martial arts. The SEC has some really good coaches right now, it has a good contract with ESPN, and it could become a great basketball conference. But everyone in the league is going to have to take a more grown-up approach to competition, and to stop the silly habit of allowing players in home games to use violence and a favorable whistle to make up for a lack of talent. No one would ever tolerate -- or even suggest -- that lesser teams like Vandy and Ole Miss should be able to commit personal fouls or holding penalties when Alabama or LSU shows up during football season; everyone in the SEC recognizes that football excellence should get the reward it deserves. We need more of that attitude in basketball season.

But for today, at least, LSU's thuggish tactics backfired, as the Cats and Jones played the second half with a blistering intensity that could bode well for the rest of the year. The one area where the Cats were somewhat lucky was that LSU went only 1-9 from three-point range -- thus disproving the notion that other teams always play their best when the Cats come to town.

Still, this was a great performance. Calipari said after the game that "{t}hat's as good as we can play," and he was probably right. I haven't even mentioned Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who had only two points but who picked up eight rebounds and did a great job on defense. He was a big part of why Christian County star Anthony Hickey, who appears to be exactly the sort of guard who normally gives us big headaches, finished with only five points for LSU.

UK is now 21-1 overall, 7-0 in the SEC, and since Kansas lost at Iowa State, they are the only team from a BCS conference that is undefeated in conference play. Next up, the Cats come home to try out their new platinum uniforms on Tuesday night against Tennessee.