HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming in March. In his free time, he traveled to Philly on Saturday and prepared this photo essay about the Kentucky-Penn game.
After attending 5 Georgetown games during November, I figured that I would shake things up a bit by heading up to Philly to see my beloved Penn Quakers host the 2nd-winningest college basketball program ever: the Kentucky Wildcats. Coach John Calipari has several players on his roster who grew up in/around the City of Brotherly Shove so he was kind enough to schedule a game back East so that all of the family/friends could come cheer on their loved ones in person. Based on the amount of blue in the stands, Big Blue Nation proved that they will also show up to cheer on their team wherever they play:
My expectations were very low going into the game but after Penn’s amazing win vs. 1 set of Wildcats last month (a 76-72 win over Villanova on 11/13) I decided to put my mascot theory to the test. I do not know how many college games are played at the Wells Fargo Center but I had to talk to literally TEN different employees before I found the media room: boo. On the plus side, I got to sit in the front row behind the basket: yay! The pregame meal consisted of a soft pretzel: what else!?
With Coach Cliff Ellis’ retirement from Coastal Carolina last Wednesday, Calipari is now the winningest active D-1 coach in the country with 790 (and counting):
In celebrity sighting news, current 76ers star/former Kentucky G Tyrese Maxey was in the house to check out his college coach:
Let’s tip it off:
Kentucky FR PF Aaron Bradshaw grew up 80 miles away from Philly in Roselle, NJ. He missed all of November with foot injury but looked as strong as an ox in the 1st half as he dominated the paint with layup after put-back after alley-oop. Kentucky is projected to end up with as many as 5 1st round picks next June and 7 guys in the top-38…and in just his 2nd game of the year Bradshaw demonstrated why he might very well be the 1st Wildcat off the board:
Another of the talented Wildcat super-frosh is G Rob Dillingham, who looked good during the 1st 20 minutes with a pair of shots from behind the arc and a lovely STL/layup. I can only hope that the fans eventually learn the proper cheer after he makes a big play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZjAmpG8fNk
Penn only trailed 23-21 after 14 minutes before Kentucky went on 16-2 run to SEEMINGLY put things out of reach at 39-23…but then it turned into the Clark Slajchert Show. Penn’s SR PG had a backdoor layup, a baby hook in the lane, then wrapped things up with a scoop just before the buzzer to keep it close as the Quakers cut the deficit to 39-29 at halftime:
During the intermission I looked up to see 76ers F Marcus Morris, who proved that some people are indeed capable of pulling off the “sunglasses indoors” look:
I also noticed Kentucky FR Reed Sheppard’s parents sitting about 10 rows behind the Wildcats bench. His father Jeff was named tourney MOP when he led Kentucky to the 1998 NCAA title, and his mother Stacey also played basketball in Lexington:
Penn hung around for several minutes in the 2nd half thanks to some young guards of their own. FR Tyler Perkins missed a ton of shots in the 1st half but drilled a trio of trifectas in the 2nd half:
His backcourt mate FR Sam Brown missed the 1st 4 games of the season due to an ankle injury but has quickly become 1 of the best 3-PT shooters in the nation, as his 4 threes on Saturday put him at 20-41 in his past 7 games:
The elder statesman of the Wildcats is SR G Antonio Reeves, who made a couple of baseline runners, a lefty tip-in, and a corner 3 to help his team withstand Penn’s 3-PT barrage:
Kentucky had a huge advantage in bench scoring all night (by an incredible mark of 40-5!) due in large part to Bradshaw, who kept beating up the smaller Quakers inside and finishing with a sensational stat line in just his 2nd career game (17 PTS/11 REB/3 BLK/0 TO) as the Wildcats cruised to an 81-66 victory.
In the postgame press conference I asked Penn coach Steve Donahue what it was like to face the winningest active D-1 coach in the country. He joked that Calipari would have to get in line since “I got my ass kicked in the past by Mike Krzyzewski/Jim Boeheim”. He admires Calipari for caring about the right things: he remembers facing him in the 2010 Sweet 16 when Donahue was Cornell’s coach and Calipari’s attention to detail (in a 62-45 win) really opened his eyes:
The very last question of the afternoon was directed to Calipari about taking Ellis’ place atop the active D-1 wins list…only it was not asked by me but by some mother-Quaker who stole my thunder! He joked that holding the record just means that he is old, then spent a couple of minutes praising Ellis, who he just talked to on Friday night:
That is a wrap from Philly, check back in a couple of weeks when I return to DC but head to the western part of the district to see how GW is looking this year!