[reggie1]

Sides, 92-84 +17.63
Totals, 11-11, -0.40
Year, 103-95, +17.23

First off, I hate Saturday’s. The card’s are usually short on my end b/c playing on a Saturday morning/early afternoon is a ton different than playing during the week while you are in your normal routine attending classes, meals, and all that hoopla. The kids are human, remember that. The adjustment period is imminent in those teams who can’t win with talent alone. But considering that quite a few of these schools have yet to resume the normal school routine, pretty much all of them should have adjusted to the whole Christmas break type routine, so we continue along. After this week, the weekend card’s are minimized until I get into mid-February.

Now that I’ve given the disclaimer, fear the bloodbath…

Three short chalks w/ the pups to come in the morning…

While some would say this is a decent rivalry, it really is not. In my opinion, a rivalry is a matchup in which teams go back and forth, team A picks up a few wins here, team B picks up a few wins there. That doesn’t happen in this matchup. Western Michigan has won the last 9 in the series, and won last year in this spot by 19 as a 3 point favorite. Eastern Michigan is pretty young, and they were pretty good last year until Medlock went down (he’s their PG who put in a great sophomore year last year until he got hurt). As soon as Medlock went down, their next best player Justin Dobbins returned from injury. Enough of Eastern. I’ve alluded to this with Western Michigan this year before, and they can hurt you in a matter of ways. Anytime you go on the road in the MAC, you’re usually in for a tough venue and a tough game, which case in point is the reason for the short line here. WMU returns all five starters from their squad last year. Their point output read like this:

Game 1: Reitz had 18, Redell had 16, Kool had 26, Gary had 10
Game 2: Reitz had 10, Redell had 12, Kool had 9, Gary had 16, Drews had 15

Drews only played 3 minutes in game 1 due to an injury. That’s some offensive balance right there. All five return here. Back to Eastern Michigan and the two guys that worry me the most, which isn’t much. Medlock, he had a great freshman campaign, and I’m gonna make a really poor comparison here. Adrian Peterson for the Bears is a pretty decent back-up running back, getting 9-11 carries a game. Benson goes down, all of a sudden Peterson’s getting 20+ carries and his production is decreasing. Same with Medlock. He’s forcing shots, his percentages are down, his minutes are up, and he’s coming off of a 5 and 7 point performance.

Key here, is going on the road in the MAC, you need a decent starting PG to weather the storm. As always, college basketball is a game of runs, and WMU should be capable of putting together a few of those runs here today. Back to weathering the storm, WMU actually starts two point guards, who are also very well at the off-guard spot as well. Not only does it help your offense, but it gives you more than one option to throw at Medlock in the event that foul trouble/injury does occur.

This team had a bad stretch at the beginning of the season, as was expected. All-Conference Center Joe Reitz had his appendix removed in August, and wasn’t ready to practice at the start of the season. Wingman Shawntes Gary had surgery on his hand over the summer. They 6th and 7th man have a surgery and a personal leave, so it took a while for this team to gel.

They’re gelling now, and I’m on the short road chalk…

4* Western Michigan -2

Vandy’s first TRUE road tilt. You can throw out 4-9 Toledo at the beginning of the year. Depaul isn’t really a "classic" home setting either, and if Depaul hits at least 1 of 7 free throws down the stretch, that game doesn't even sniff overtime. Kentucky's defensive efficiency will be at least 50 spots better than any team they faced this year, with the exception of wake forest who has a better defensive efficiency than does Kentucky, and that was only a 3 point victory w/ Foster's season high and the Australian's career high.
Kentucky's pace here is alot slower than Umass, Tenn-Martin, Depaul, Georgia Tech, South Bama, Bradley, Utah State, Valpo, and the Pee. Think this is just a bad spot in my opinion to go on the road with a big fat target on your back walking into Rupp regardless of the team Kentucky puts out on the court playing a completely different style of ball that you have played all year.

1* Kentucky -1

I’m also on:

2* Purdue PK

The rest to come...

GL