Wow! That is really all I can say about the South Eastern Conference (SEC) tournament outcome, it included everything you could ask for. As the Kentucky Wildcats lead by freshman John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins defeat Mississippi State in overtime for the schools 26th SEC tournament championship, Kentucky also won the regular season SEC championship as well.
This tourney was a challenge for the cats from the start as they received a first round bye and faced Alabama in a game were the cats struggled in the first half and went in to half time down by five, but the second half was a different story. Whatever Coach Cal told them in the locker room at the half worked as they come out to win the game as they pulled out a 73-63 point win over the tide. The leading scorer of game one was Wall with 23 points as he stepped up big in this game. Junior Patrick Patterson showed his leadership skills to have 20 points and four rebounds.
Game two of the weekend the wildcats faced there boarder state rival Tennessee Vols, the cats and the vols split the regular season as UT awarded Kentucky one of their two losses this season. The neutral court played in the cats favor as the town was painted blue with wildcat fans. Coach Cal pushed the point of play as hard as you can the first five minutes of each half and you will win the game and He also told his players if you don’t take the open shot you’re going to be on the bench and these two things pushed Kentucky to a 74-45 win. There is bad blood between these two teams and the coaches so it was a very physical game that included 2 sets of technical fouls and an ejection of a Tennessee player. The wildcats lead this game from the tip as Kentucky took a 32-19 lead at the half were coach call said I want to win by 25 points, well he got his wish. Cousins went to get his 19th double-double of the year with 19 points and 15 rebounds in a game controlled by freshmen as Eric Bledsoe scored 17 points and Wall put up 14.
With these two wins they advance to the championship game were they went on to win 75-74 in overtime over Miss. St. Today was Patterson’s 21st birthday and he wanted to bring home the title for that as he came out of the gate scoring four of his 15 points in the first few minutes of the game. The cats trialed at the half 31-35 but they came out playing a lot better half a pep talk from the coach but they just couldn’t finish it in the second 20 minutes as Cousins hits a shot with one tenth of a second left on the clock to send them in to over time. Overtime was control by Wall as he hit a key 3-point shot to put the cats in control. Wall finished the game with 17 points, eight assist and seven rebounds, and Cousins finished the game with a double-double 10 points and 10 rebounds.
John Wall was awarded the MVP of the tournament and him as well as cousins made the all tourney team. The cats will celebrate this win for a little while as they wait out to see where they place in the NCAA tournament bracket. They are thought to be the number two over all in the tournament which would give them a number one seed in the east more than likely. We don’t have long to wait to find out where they will place as the selection show begins at 6:00 pm eastern time.
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