Quick Thoughts on UL vs UK

By Haven Harrington @mesports

In just a few short days the Battle for the Bluegrass will be upon us. UK fans are confident that they are going to win and they should be. Calipari has owned Rick Pitino since he has been at UK. In fact, in the last several years, this hasn't been much of a rivalry. It's been Big Blue domination. However, I think this is the first year in a long time that UL has a good shot at knocking off UK.

We can talk about match ups until we are blue in the face. Who will guard who, what player has the advantage over the other, etc. But I think this will come down to one thing. UL's advantage in the paint. Even without Mango UL has a serious size and depth advantage. Don't get me wrong, UK has height, but not size. Skal is a great talent, but he is extremely skinny. Marcus Lee is 6'9", but weighs 205 lbs. UL on the other hand has plethora of low post players and guys with size. Onuaku, Anas Mahmoud, Jaylen Johnson, Deng Adel, Ray Spalding, and even Matz Stockman. UCLA, Ohio State, and even Duke were able to take advantage of UK's lack of size in the post. Duke eventually lost because of UK's superior guard play, but the other two teams found ways to win after they exploited the low post. Speaking of guard play...

This is where I think UK and UL are pretty much even. UK has great guards, led by Tyler Ulis. He's the perfect court general for this team. Jamal Murray is a beast and will be a great guard at the next level. Isiah Briscoe is another tremendous talent. UL will match them with Quentin Snyder, Trey Lewis and Damian Lee. The UK guards are slightly better at driving the lane, but UL's guards are hands down the better shooters of the bunch. The guard match ups are going to be fun to watch.  If Lee and Lewis keep shooting like they have all season, especially from 3, this will put a lot of pressure on UK's guards to try and match them. Especially knowing that UL "should" dominate the paint. The scary part for UL fans is that UK's guards are up to the challenging. Murray may be listed as a freshman, but he has ton of experience. Playing with the Canada national team has made Murray battle tested. He and Ulis are not going to fold. Even with that said I'll have to give the edge to UL. UK is a team that depends on its guards, but UK is not a good 3 point shooting team.  UK shoots 29.7% from 3 which makes them the 310th best 3 point shooting team in D1.  UL is the 59th ranked 3 pt shooting, hitting 38% of their 3's. If guard play is about equal, then I'll go with the better shooting guards.

Like I said in the beginning. This is UL's best shot at beating UK. UL has a decided low post advantage and a slight advantage at guard play. But, as we all know strange things often happen in rivalry games. It seems like every year UK has a guy who comes off the bench and has a career night.    I don't think that will be enough this year. UL has too much down low even with Mango out. I look for UL to finally end the streak and make this a rivalry once more.

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