Well, it’s official. The Men’s basketball regular season is over. It’s tourney time! March Madness is upon us! Earlier tonight, the full SEC bracket was released. The first round of the tournament begins Wednesday, and will conclude with the Championship game on Sunday at 3:15 PM. Despite a disappointing loss today, the Cats will cling to a #2 seed heading into Atlanta. This year will mark the 56th SEC tournament for Men’s basketball, as Kentucky looks to win their 28th conference championship. Kentucky begins tournament play on Friday, March 14th, at 7:00 PM. The Cats will play the winner of LSU and Alabama.
Without further delay, let’s have a look at the full SEC bracket.
via secdigitalnetwork.com
Now on to today’s news:
Photo from SEC Facebook
- Matthew Mitchell and the UK Hoops team defeated South Carolina in the semi-finals of the Women’s SEC Tournament. It was a huge victory for our women’s team, as they upset 5th ranked South Carolina with a of score 68-58. Kentucky will play in the championship game tomorrow afternoon against Tennessee. Today’s win could also be a huge improvement for their seeding in the NCAA tournament. A championship tomorrow may very well solidify a #3 seed for UK Hoops.
Photo © Kim Klement
- Calipari is going back to Dakari Johnson. After today’s 84-65 loss to the Gators, Calipari was quick to make some changes in the lineup. During his post-game interview with Tom Leach, Calipari acknowledged the strong play from Johnson as of late. “Dakari needs to be starting, and that’s what we’ll do,” Calipari said. “He’s the one kid who has fun with it.”
-In a post-game meeting with members of the press, Julius Randle gave his opinion on what needed to be done to correct the mess in which Kentucky currently finds themselves. “We’ve got to get this thing going,” said Randle. ”We don’t know what we’ve got to do, but we’ve got to get it going.”
-Former Kentucky sharpshooter, Doron Lamb, finally figured out what time Kentucky played and witnessed what happened to the team that he used to play for. He took to Twitter after the game to let his concerns be heard by the world.
-John Calipari wasn’t timid in stating what he thought might have cost Kentucky a chance at a comeback today. During his post-game presser, Cal let it fly. ”We did fight and gave ourselves a chance to win on the road. I thought we fought and did good stuff, but when it came down to a 6-8 point game, we took two God awful shots. Not just bad shots, but throws. They were throws. Those two shots were taken with 30 seconds on the clock. Throws. Absolute, no chance… nothing! You can’t win playing that way.” Coach Cal said he told the team during a timeout that they needed to be more patient and take better shots. Obviously, that message fell upon deaf ears.
The remainder of his press conference can be found below and is courtesy of KYWildcatsTV.
-During his post game press conference, Billy Donovan was asked about Kentucky and their season-long struggles. His answers were surprisingly positive (polite) regarding a team that just lost by double digits. “I think Kentucky’s as talented as anybody in the country,” said Donovan. “They’ve got all the pieces, but there’s always a process.” The Gator head man further elaborated. “When a group of really talented players come into college, sometimes the expectations placed on them are unfair.”
-While the basketball result wasn’t what any of us wanted today, the baseball squad dispatched Ball State this afternoon by a final score of 24-1. “We did a great job at the plate,” Kentucky head coach Gary Henderson said. “We scored a bunch of runs without an error. We had good concentration and didn’t try to do too much. We also did a great job of swinging at strikes and looking at balls. We took advantage when we were in advantage counts.” KYWildcatsTV has your highlights.