No. 1 Kentucky cruises past Eastern Kentucky 82-49

LEXINGTON, Ky. – It was not a letdown but a beatdown by the top-ranked University of Kentucky basketball team Sunday night at Rupp Arena. After surviving a slugfest with Texas less than 48 hours earlier, the Wildcats were not caught napping against an Eastern Kentucky team with a pesky pressure defense and penchant for the deep ball.

Instead of being bothered by the Colonel's four-guard lineup, which ranks top-three nationally in steals and 3-point attempts, Kentucky swatted them away like pests and rolled to an 82-49 rout. The Wildcats, who had a collective 17 inches of height advantage on EKU's starters, blocked 11 shots. The Colonels made only 18.

For the fifth consecutive game and sixth time in nine tries, UK held an opponent below 30 percent shooting.

"As long as Coach Cal is here, we're never going to have a 'blah' game," said Cats assistant John Robic, who filled in at the podium for John Calipari because the boss lost his voice. "Some of the numbers that we're producing right now are kind of silly. I mean, it's mind-boggling."

The Cats (9-0) limited the Colonels (4-3) to 17.1 percent shooting in the first half – including just 2 of 17 from 3-point range – and coughed up only seven turnovers before the break to seize control quickly. Kentucky scored 11 of 13 points to start the game and 15 straight to end the first half for a 41-14 lead after 20 minutes.

Eastern's Denzel Richardson came off the bench to score 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting. He hit all three of his 3-pointers. So while the rest of his team made just 10 of 58 overall and 3 of 27 from deep, Richardson had a different perspective on the Cats: "They really wasn't that good of defenders to me."

Colonels coach Jeff Neubauer literally face-palmed when he heard.

"Um, we need to do more media training with our young men," he said. "I told them they were just guarded by the best defensive team in the modern era of college basketball – and I'm not exaggerating a little bit when I say that."

Freshmen Karl-Anthony Towns and Trey Lyles led the way. Towns had 19 points, nine rebounds and four blocks in 23 minutes. The 6-10 Lyles recorded his first career double-double: 10 points and 10 boards in 22 minutes.

Towns played with a new, close-cropped haircut and a scowl.

"I think I was playing too much like a freshman. I played a little timid sometimes," he said. "I just wanted to come out today and act like a junior … not to play like everything is so smiley and stuff. I don't think I smiled one time today."

His teammates grinned plenty for him – some of them making fun of his mean mug. Junior Willie Cauley-Stein and sophomore Marcus Lee joined in the fun, scoring 11 and 10 points, respectively, while point guards Andrew Harrison and Dominique Hawkins had six assists apiece.

Calipari played a modified version of his two-platoon system, in part because freshman point guard Tyler Ulis was out sick. Hawkins, normally the 11th man on the roster, replaced him but Andrew Harrison played with both groups in spurts. Calipari also shuffled his big men between units.

Kentucky never trailed, as EKU started 1 of 11 from the field, and the only suspense in the second half was whether the Wildcats' 3-point streak would survive. Much like the Texas game, when they missed their first 11 tries before hitting one late, they bricked 10 in a row Sunday and the crowd was getting antsy.

"You could definitely sense it," Lee said. "For the people who didn't even know about it, they kind of knew something wrong or something was going on."

Naturally, Aaron Harrison rattled in a contested three from the left wing – the same spot he hit three clinching 3-pointers during last season's Final Four run – with 2:57 remaining. The Wildcats were already up 25, but the home crowd roared because he extended the program's streak to 909 consecutive games with at least one bucket beyond the arc.

"Who else would you expect to hit a big three?" Towns said.

For good measure, the 6-foot-11 Towns swished another one moments later, then 12th man Derek Willis came off the bench to bury a third before the buzzer.

Kentucky didn't let down its guard in this game, rather dropped the hammer.

Kyle Tucker writes for the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal.