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In First Round Action
Wildcats Easily Handle Pirates, 86-52
A strong second half surge is all Kentucky needed as the Wildcats upped their slate to 6-1 with an 86-52 victory over the East Carolina Pirates last Friday evening at Rupp Arena.
The win placed the Wildcats in championship game of the 33rd annual UKIT tourney.
Kenny Walker, decked out in his new pair of protective goggles, paced a balance scoring attack with 19 points. A big chunck of Walker's tallies came from the free throw line where the senior hit on 13 of 14 attempts.
Junior guard James Blackmon found the range on this night hitting eight of 12 from the field and two of four free throws for 18 points. Winston Bennett, who grabbed a game-high nine rebounds, chipped in with 11 points in 24 minutes of action.
"I thought we opened the ballgame and played well." said UK coach Eddie Sutton. "Then we went through death valley and went over 10 minutes without a field goal."
"You have to give East Carolina credit, they played us tough."
Kentucky found itself in a close tussle early as the visitors took advantage of some cold shooting by the Wildcats.
At the 13:04 mark Bennett squared up and fired a 16-footcr over a leaping Marchell Henry, giving UK a 17-6 advantage. However, it would be the last field goal for Kentucky for a long, long time. In fact, the next time Kentucky scored from the field was on a twirling layup by Walker at the 1:37 mark. Walker's field goal gave Kentucky a 32-24 lead. Roger Harden and Ed Davender each connected from the field to close out the first half with the Wildcats on top. 36-24.
The cold shooting bug transferred sides in the second stanza as UK reeled off the first six points.
Pirate coach Charlie Harrison quickly signaled for a timeout with 17:50 remaining. Things didn't change much as UK proceeded to outscore East Carolina 44 to 28.
"We missed some easy shots and this led to some easy shots for them," Harrison said about the overall contest. "And they really pounded the offensive boards. I think this was the big difference in the second half.
Kentucky outrebounded East Carolina, 27-10 in the second half, including 12 to 6 from the offensive side of the ledger.
Shut out in the final 3:20 of the first half, East Carolina didn't connect on a basket until Herb Dixon got past Bennett for a reverse layup at the 17:37 mark.
Overall, Kentucky shot 53.7 percent (29 of 54) from the field while East Carolina connected on 21 of 52 attempts for 40.4 percent.
Henry helped the Pirates get close with a 14-footer and two layins pulling East Carolina within striking distance, 18-14. Sandwiched between Henry's points was an awesome baseline dunk by 6-foot-5 Al Clark.
Dixon and Henry led the Pirates, who fell to 4-2 on the season, with 10 points apiece.
Defensively, UK's man-to-man gave th? Pirates fits in the second half, especially underneath. ECU shot only 10 of 29 from the field in the final 20 minutes for a dissmal 34.5 percent. East Carolina's 6-10 center Leon Bass was held to eight points, before fouling out with 7:37 remaining.
Walker From Outside   Winston Bennett
Byrd Looking To Pick Hardy's Pocket
BLACKMON FINDS THE RANGE
For the three-guard offense to be effective Blackmon must hit from the field similar to his performance tonight.
Sutton pointed out that the 6-3 guard has been working on his outside shooting.
"He's been working real hard all week in practice," the UK mentor said. "He can shoot the basketball. He just needs to gain some confidence. I think James has played hard and has played well in so many areas of the game. He just hasn't been hitting the outside shot. We hope it's back from vacation and we'll have it the rest of the way.
"The biggest thing is confidence," commented Blackmon after the game. "I had a couple of bad games and missed a couple of shots I should've made."
For Blackmon it's been a roller-coaster career at Kentucky. One night he'll hit double digits then the next game draw a goose-egg.
Like Sutton stated, though, his shot may be back for good.
SEMI-TUSSLE FIRES UP CATS
For most of the first half the game had about as much excitement as watching a four-corner offense in operation. Kentucky came into the game a 30-point favorite, but East Carolina suprisingly took it to UK underneath. And when a team gets most of its points from the free throw line (16 of 36) it's tough, from a fan's point of view, to be excited.
Things were pretty much dullsville. . .until Bennett and Clark argued back and forth with 2:06 remaining. Both players, who had to be restrained by their teammates, were whistled for a foul each.
UK held a six-point advantage (30-24) but the Blue and White supporters were not a factor at all. But that was before the Bennett-Clark incident. Less than 30 seconds later a Davender steal turned into a 360-degree layin by Walker, which in turn ignited the partisan UK crowd.
Said Bennett, "I think that was just a matter of two teams going out and playing tough and emotional. East Carolina was not going to roll over and play dead. They were going to come out and put it to us."
WILDCAT COACH GETS CHANCE TO EXPERIMENT
After building a comfortable advantage the reserves came in and showed what they could do. Following Bennett's stop-and-pop 12 footer, Sutton called off the troops leading. 56-30.
Earlier Walker checked out of the game for good (14:08) and was later joined by Davender and Blackmon (13:14).
During the final 13 minutes, everyone was given a chance to show their colors. Instead of sitting back and relaxing the reserves continued to pour it on.
Byrd brought the crowd of 22,416 to its feet with a coast-to-coast layup. And just a second later did the little man do something positive again, as this time he stole a pass and laid ir up for another two points (defensive goal-tending). In a span of 10 seconds Byrds's four points upped the Wildcat lead to 75-40. His six points is a UK career-high for the 5-5 guard.
Todd Ziegler came in and played well for 11 minutes. He also brought the crowd, as well as the Kentucky bench, to its feet when he soared to tip in a Richard Madison miss.
Madison and Cedric Jenkins also tossed in seven and six points, respectively.
PIRATE-WILDCAT TIDBITS
With 19 points Kenny Walker pulled within nine of No. 9 Melvln Turpin (1,509) on the all-time UK scoring list. Walker now needs only 649 tallies to be the all-time Kentucky scorer. The goggles worn by Walker are the same make that Karcem Abdul Jabbar and James Worthy of the Los Angeles Lakers wear. . .Roger Harden dished out four assists on the evening, upping his season total 46. . .Among those in attendance were the eight prep teams participating in the Hillbrook Classic (December 21). . .East Carolina's leading re-bounder on the night was 6-5 forward Manuel Jones with four. . .UK outrebounded the Pirates 45 to 24. . .UK's bench hit on 13 of 18 from the field for an impressive 73.3 percent. . .Kentucky's one and only freshman, Irving Thomas has still failed to connect on a field goal. He played eight minutes and did put up an attempt. On the near scuffle Winston Bennett said. "You never think of an action like that as a benefit because that's not showing class for either one of our programs. I'm sorry that I got into it. I've been known to get into situations like that."