One of my favorite features on Ken Pomeroy's web page is that he designates an MVP for every game of the season. Here are UK's MVP's so far:
1. Kentucky 78 - 65 Albany (MVP: Jamal Murray)
2. Kentucky 87 - 57 New Jersey Inst. of Tech (MVP: Skal Labissiere)
3. Duke 63 - 74 Kentucky (MVP: Tyler Ulis)
4. Kentucky 78 - 63 Wright St. (MVP: Ulis (2))
5. Kentucky 82 - 62 Boston Univ. (MVP: Alex Poythress)
6. S. Florida 63 - 84 Kentucky (MVP: Labissiere (2))
7. Kentucky 75 - 63 Illinois St. (MVP: Marcus Lee)
8. UCLA 87 - 77 Kentucky (Loss -- no UK MVP)
9. Kentucky 88 - 67 E. Kentucky (MVP: Poythress (2))
10. Kentucky 72 - 58 Arizona St. (MVP: Lee (2))
So that gives us the following list:
Ulis -- 2
Labissiere -- 2
Poythress -- 2
Lee -- 2
Murray
That is a remarkably even distribution. It could mean that the Cats have a very well-balanced line-up, or it could mean that they don't have a really dominant player. We will hope for the former.
For now, K-Pom has UK ranked 8th in the country. He expects the Cats to go 14-4 in the SEC, and 25-6 overall. He has UK as a true underdog in three games:
01/30/16: at Kansas (32 percent chance of a UK victory)
02/27/16: at Vandy (43 percent chance of a UK victory)
03/01/16: at Florida (49 percent chance of a UK victory)
If the Cats lose back-to-back games against Vandy and Florida so late in the season, I would expect a certain amount of stress in the Commonwealth. Sometimes people overreact to late-season road losses.
until just a couple of weeks ago, i thought Skal Labissiere's name was "Skai" and that it was probably pronounced "sky"--and that his parents were aiming for "skylab."
ReplyDeletei got totally freaked out about skylab in 1979.