Patrick Patterson Done for Year

Doctors found that Patrick Patterson has a stress fracture in his foot and he is out for the remainder of the season. This is obviously shocking news as UK was preparing for a huge game sunday at Tennessee and now it looks as though their tournament hopes are going to go down the drain with the loss of by far their most important player. Patterson was by far the best down low post player and really the only one that could create his own shot and make a shot outside 10 feet. Hopefully UK can miraculously win every game execpt the Tennessee one but those are some very slim odds.

Kentucky Greats: #22, Ron Mercer

Not many people would say Ron Mercer’s name when rattling off the top players in Kentucky Basketball history, but if you look at his statistics and how the Wildcat teams that he played on finished you might change your mind. Ron Mercer is one of the more highly touted players to commit to the Kentucky program in their history. In high school Mercer was a two-time Mr. Basketball winner in the state of Tennessee, one of only 5 players in the last 20 years in Tennessee to accomplish that feat. Mercer was also a Parade First Team All-American and McDonald’s All-American as a senior. In college, despite only playing two seasons at UK, Mercer was a member of the 1,000 point club. Mercer amassed over 700 points as a sophmore, the second most points in school history by a sophmore, and also made 297 field-goals as a sophmore, the best by any sophmore in school history. Mercer then averaged at least 15 points per game in each of his first 7 seasons after entering the NBA Draft after his sophmore season. Here are some of Mercer’s college and NBA accomplishments:

•  Ron Mercer ranks 5th all-time in single season points with 725 points in his sophmore season, only Dan Issel scored more points as a sophmore in school history
•  Mercer ranks 3rd in school history with 297 made field-goals as a sophmore, the most made field-goals by a sophmore in school history
•  Mercer ranks 9th on the school’s single season steals list with 66
•  He ranks 5th among sophmores in UK history with 49 three-pointers made
•  Mercer was 69-7 in his career, a winning percentage of 91%, with 2 NCAA Championship game appearances, including one win
•  As a freshman Mercer made the All-SEC Freshman Team and made the All-NCAA Final Four Team
•  As a sophmore Mercer was named First Team All-American, All-NCAA Final Four Team, NCAA Regional Most Outstanding Player, SEC Player of the Year, First Team All-SEC, & SEC Tournament MVP

Many people do not realize when they look back at that ‘97 national runner-up team how good Mercer really was. He had arguably the greatest sophmore season in school history and won many more awards as a sophmore than anyone else in school history as a sophmore. Mercer compiled one of the greatest two year runs in school history, one that ranks second in my opinion behind Derek Anderson. Mercer went on to have a solid career in the NBA with 8 years averaging in double figures, including the first 7 years of his career.

UK vs. Mississippi – Post Game

Well I guess Kentucky just does not want to win a game by double digits in Southeastern Conference play this season, because yet again the ‘Cats let a giant lead slip right through their hands. UK was able to pull out the victory 58-54 wednesday night at Rupp Arena in front of over 23,000 screaming fans. The ferocious Ole Miss comeback was fueled by numerous offensive rebounds, a statistic that Mississippi leads the SEC in, mainly by Dwayne Curtis inside. Curtis with 15 rebounds, 8 of them on the offensive end, to go along with 12 points and he rattled off his 14th double double on the season. Freshman sensation Chris Warren lit up the nets for the Rebels in the second half with almost 20 of his points coming in the last 20 minutes. Had Warren not been plagued by foul trouble Ole Miss might have been able to win this game. Warren was basically the only Rebel scoring option in the 2nd half but UK was still not able to stop his hot hand. Kentucky gave Mississippi every oppurtunity in the world to win the ball game, allowing them to get a wide-open three point attempt in the closing seconds with only a two point lead but Ole Miss could not hit the shot. Kentucky also was able to help their NCAA Tournament resume’ with the win against the Rebels because Ole Miss was ranked in the RPI top 50 coming into the game. UK has now defeated two straight top 50 RPI teams in a row at Rupp Arena, a feat that has not been completed in a couple of years. Again though nobody was able to stop the one-two-three punch of the Wildcats as Patrick Patterson, Ramel Bradley & Joe Crawford all scored at least 14 points, led by Joe Crawford’s 15. Patterson odly enough shot under 50% from the floor for the second consecutive game, the first time he has had back to back games shooting under 50% from the floor. Ramel Bradley was fantastic for the majority of the game up until he missed two crucial free throws that almost cost UK the game. Had he hit the shots from the charity stripe the game would have been over and UK would have wrapped up the game without giving Kentucky fans everywhere a heart attack.

KEYS TO THE GAME… After The Game

One indication as to why UK almost blew their lead against the Mississippi Rebels is because they only completed one of the three KEYS TO THE GAME that I laid out for them. The KEYS TO THE GAME usually give a pretty good indication as to who will win or if the game is close or not. The first KEY TO THE GAME that I will start off with is the only one that the ‘Cats accomplished, and that was to feed Patrick Patterson the ball. Patterson still did not get his necessary 10 field-goal attempts that basically guarantee a Wildcat victory but he got close enough with 9 and made 4 of them. Patterson did struggle a little bit from the floor missing many turn arounds and hook shots that he is known to knock down consistently. Patterson did do a very good job of getting to the foul line as he made 7 of his team high 9 attempts from the charity stripe. Patterson does get some sort of a break though because Ole Miss’ defense was sagging completely around Patterson and for long periods of time in a row we could not find a second option, something that has plagued the offense all year long. Late in the second half seniors Joe Crawford and Ramel Bradley stepped up and showed their leadership by controlling the game and scoring points at crucial points in the game.

The second KEY TO THE GAME that I will discuss is the first one that UK did not complete. That would be to keep Ole Miss off the offensive glass and defensive glass. Mississippi completely dominated the boards wednesday night, winning the overall rebounding battle 36-26 over the smaller Wildcats. The offensive rebounds are what killed UK all night long, the Rebels out-rebounded Kentucky 16-2 on the offensive glass! Led by Dwayne Curtis’ 8 offensive boards, Curtis had more offensive boards than any Wildcat player had total rebounds yesterday. Another stat that Mississippi dominated that has to do with offensive rebounds is second chance points. Ole Miss killed UK on the second chance points by scoring 17 points against 2 off offensive rebounds, a stat that could have potentially costed UK the game.

The third and final KEY TO THE GAME that I presented for the ‘Cats, and another one that they did not complete, was for Kentucky not to turn the ball over. UK gets in a habit of turning the ball over more than their opponent and when that happens they get beat often. Kentucky once again turned the ball over more than their opponent, out-turnovering (Is that a word?) Ole Miss 18-17, not a big enough margin to make a difference really but that is still about 8-9 too many turnovers. Their is no excuse for Kentucky to get double digit turnovers against any team, much less a team that is mediocre at defense. Kentucky came into the game averaging about 14 turnovers per game in SEC play but went way above that average last night. Ramel Bradley, a player that usually is pretty good with the ball and averages about 3 turnovers per game, lead the team and the game in turnovers with 5 of them. Joe Crawford and Ramon Harris also contributed to the turnover parade by both going way over their season averages in turnovers with 3 apiece.

Surpise of the Game

The SOG in my opinion had to be the dominance of Ole Miss on the offensive boards. Everyone knew that going in Mississippi could rebound the ball so I thought that coach Billy Gillispie would install some new looks or something to give them an advantage, I also thought that the UK players would take it upon themselves to go out and out-rebound the Rebels, but neither of those things happened. Kentucky got BLASTED on the offensive rebounds 16-2 as I mentioned before, the biggest margin of offensive rebounds of the season by far. This is the first game this year that UK was out-rebounded on the offensive boards by double digits and probably is the first time in a couple years. Billy Gillispie needs to work with his big men on the art of boxing out and going after every rebound if he wants this team to be successful come tournament time (If the Wildcats make it that far).

NEXT GAME

March 2 @ Tennessee

12:00 on CBS

UK vs. Mississippi – Preview

Kentucky takes on the Mississippi Rebels tomorrow in Rupp Arena in what is sure to be one of the biggest crowds in the arena’s history as each game UK plays begins to get more and more important to solidifying their tournament chances. I am sure that Kentucky understands the importance of winning this game because they can not afford to lose any games against underdogs. The only game that UK has a pass on is at Tennessee this coming sunday in Knoxville. Mississippi comes in to this game struggling worse than any team in the conference, losing 7 of their last 10 games, including 2 losses to Auburn, one to LSU, and one to South Carolina, probably the three worst teams in the Southeastern Conference. Kentucky on the other hand comes in on a blazing hot streak winning 8 of their last 9. The Wildcats are finding a way to get their big three in scoring positions and ways to get the ball in areas that they can do something with it. If UK gets all three of their best players good looks tomorrow I see no reason why Kentucky should leave with a loss.

KEYS TO THE GAME

The first KEY TO THE GAME is for Kentucky to keep the Rebel big men off of the offensive and defensive glass tomorrow. Ole Miss is the best overall rebounding team in the SEC ranking 1st in offensive boards with just over 15.5 per game and 2nd in defensive rebounds per game with about 25.5 in each game. Kentucky can ill-afford to be lackadasical on the glass because UK can not allow Mississippi to get easy put backs, they need to force the Rebels to earn each basket and to take contested jump shots far away from the basket. UK is dead last in the SEC in offensive rebounding so they will not have as many easy chances most likely so they need to also limit Ole Miss’ oppurtunities as well. Mississippi has three guys averaging 5.5 rebounds per game or better where as UK only has 1, that means that UK can not just single out one player to stop on the boards because if they focus only on one guy they will get burned by the other two rebounding beasts. It will take very good execution to keep the Rebel players off the boards but I feel that with just effort on UK’s end that they can easily accomplish their goal of winning the rebounding battle.

The second KEY TO THE GAME for UK to win tomorrow is to NOT TURN THE BALL OVER! Kentucky consistently turns the ball over more than their opponent. UK is virtually undefeated this season when they win the turnover battle. Even though they are on a pretty good winning streak right now they are still turning the ball over too much. UK has been beaten in the turnover battle in each of the last 8 games. That has to be one of the worst streaks in the nation in this category but they still seem to win. It would make it a lot easier to win if they just take care of the ball, give the ball to Ramel Bradley and let him run the team for 40 minutes. I do not want to see any Michael Porter in this game because he is a turnover waiting to happen when he is the only point guard in there. He does not always know where to go with the ball and half the time that he does he still makes a bad pass or makes the pass too early or too late. Kentucky seems to play better when they have a short bench and when they play the starters the majority of the game. The only exception to that is Mark Coury who, for some reason, always starts and then gets pulled and does not get back in the game.

The third and final KEY TO THE GAME against Mississippi tomorrow is to feed Patrick Patterson the ball. I have used this as a KEY in each of the past couple games but it is vitally important. The ‘Cats are 8-1 when Patterson scores at least 20 points this season, their only loss coming at home against San Diego two months ago. Another interesting fact is that in our streak of 8 wins in 9 games Patterson has attempted at least 10 shots in every game but one, the one time he did not was in the embarrasing loss to Vanderbilt. So the key here is for Patterson to get touches in the post and in places where he can actually make one move and score, and for him to attempt double digit shots. Anything under 10 shot attempts would not be enough because he is the piece of the offense that makes us go because it opens up the floor.

My prediction for the UK/Ole Miss game is that UK wins by a final score of 67-59. I think UK will be up by 11 or so for the last 8-10 minutes and Ole Miss will hit a few late shots to make the game seem closer than it really is. I think Billy Gillispie is a good enough coach to understand that Patrick Patterson needs touches in the post so I think Patterson will get a large number of post touches and I think he finishes with 17 points and 9 rebounds against the rebound stifling front line of Ole Miss.

NEXT GAME

Feb. 27 vs. Ole Miss

8:00 pm EST on ESPN Full Court and RAYCOM Sports

Kentucky Greats: #23, John Pelphrey

John Pelphrey might be the most cherished Kentucky player of all-time, he stayed at UK through the roughest times in the history of the program in the early ’90’s when UK was put on probation after recruiting violations were found. Pelphrey and the other members of the team that stayed are still known today as “The Unforgettables”. Pelphrey was not a bad player either, ranking in the top 30 in UK history in many categories including scoring, steals, assists, free-throw attempts, free-throws made, three-pointers attempted & three-pointers made. He is the only player in school history with those statistics. Pelphrey also improved every year he played at UK, he improved in minutes played, field-goals made, assists & total points each season he played for the ‘Cats, something that many players at any school can say. Pelphrey also has his jersey retired because of his achievments and how beloved he was in his playing career. When the Wildcats hosted Arkansas, Pelphrey is the head coach of the Razorbacks, yesterday Pelphrey got a great standing ovation from the Big Blue faithful even though he coaches Kentucky’s rival. Some of Pelphrey’s accomplishments include:

•  Pelphrey ranks 30th in UK history with 1,257 points
•  He is 7th all-time with 173 career steals
•  He ranks 11th on the all-time assists list at UK with 327
•  Made the All-SEC 1st team as a sophmore
•  Made the All-SEC Tournament team as a junior
•  Had his #34 jersey retired

For any player these stats and accomplishments would make you a fan and crowd favorite but it means more to the Big Blue Faithful that it is John Pelphrey that did this. Pelphrey never gave up on a play and always played smart and to his full ability, not many players at any program can say they got absolute most out of their potential like Pelphrey did. For all of his accomplishments John Pelphrey was inducted into the Kentucky Wildcats Hall of Fame in 2005, a very big honor for UK athletes that contains many of the all-time greats that wore the Blue and White.

No UK/Ark Preview

Sorry you guys but there will not be a UK vs. Arkansas preview today. I have some family matters to attend to so I can not write it today. Sorry.

Kentucky Greats: #24, Derek Anderson

Although he only played two years at the University of Kentucky after transfering from Ohio State, Derek Anderson still displayed greatness on the court and was a flat out star. Anderson scored 674 points in his career, 337 in each season despite only playing half the year as a senior. Anderson had a rare combination of athleticism and the ability to play under control. Most freakishly athletic guys like Derek Anderson do not know how to harness their gift and make the most out of it, Derek Anderson was different, he could burn you with the three just as easily as he could pump fake you and go around you for a poster worthy jam. Anderson was a winner in his tenure at Kentucky racking up 34 wins against only 2 losses as a junior on the ‘95-’96 Wildcat team that many consider to be the best college basketball team of all-time and a team that won the national title, and going 17-2 as a senior on the national runner-up team. Overall Anderson was 51-4 in games that he played in, a winning percentage of 94.4%. Here are some of Anderson’s career achievments, some that I have already talked about:

•  Scored 674 career points, 101st all-time at UK, despite only playing one and one half years
•  Anderson’s 94.4% winning percentage is top 10 in UK history, had he played the full season in ‘96-’97 he would be #1 all-time in wins per year at UK
•  Anderson averaged 17.7 ppg as a senior at UK, number two on the team at that time (Ron Mercer)
•  All-NCAA Regional Team in ‘95-’96 on the 34-2 Kentucky Wildcats that eventually won the national championship
•  In ‘96-’97 Anderson was voted 2nd-team All-SEC by the coaches and 3rd-team by the AP despite playing in only 5 SEC games the entire year

One reason there are not many achievments listed is because of the injury Anderson suffered mid way through his senior season, had he played a full season he would be near the top in many single-season records at Kentucky including: points, free-throw attempts, free-throws made, three-pointers made & minutes in a season. Anderson is one of the first players to be named any time anyone says anything about UK basketball in the ’90’s. Even though Anderson’s stats are not as impressive as some players that made the list I stated in the update before the Kentucky Greats began that how the team does is a major part of the selection process and there are not many players (Almost none) that can say they went 51-4 in their career’s.

Videos of Derek Anderson

LINK TO ANOTHER VIDEO: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=467743

UK vs. Georgia – Post Game

Kentucky came out hot against Georgia last night and stayed that way for the entire first half. Not in any game this season has UK started off as good as these Wildcats did yesterday, Joe Crawford hit 3 three-pointers in the first 3 minutes and the ‘Cats led 11-2 just 2:37 into the game. Kentucky led by as much as 16 in the game and only trailed for 14 seconds the entire game. It makes it a lot easier to win when you get off to such a great start and makes it even easier when you get your top two scorers to both reach the 20 point mark. Led by Joe Crawford’s 24 points and Patrick Patterson’s 20, the Wildcats had a 1-2 punch that could not be stopped yesterday. If Patterson was double teamed down low, no problem, just kick it out to Crawford and he will hit a 3, he had 4 of them last night. Patrick Patterson turned in yet another efficient performance going over 50% from the field for the game once again. Patterson was virtually unstoppable in the post against the Bulldogs and the thing that made him even more dangerous against them was his ability to hit the mid range jumper yesterday. Patterson was probably 4-5 from the free throw line area, that made the defense extend and allowed an open lane for back door cuts and other easy buckets.

KEYS TO THE GAME… After The Game

One reason that Kentucky won the game yesterday against Georgia could be because they completed all three KEYS TO THE GAME against them. The first KEY that I thought UK had to complete was to slow down Sundiata Gaines. Gaines had been on a tear entering the game, going for over 20 against Tennessee and scortching everyone else in the Southeastern Conference. Kentucky made some minor, but key, adjustments to slow him down yesterday. Instead of pressuring him once he got the ball Kentucky decided to put a man on him all over the court and to refuse to let him get the ball at all. Surprisingly Ramon Harris got the “honors” of guarding Gaines and he did a spectacular job. Gaines finished with only 10 points on the day on only 4-14 shooting from the field. I believe that Gillispie’s decision to face guard Gaines all over the court is the main reason for the off game that he had. UK played picks very well, not allowing him to get uncontested threes, and just played an all around smart game on defense. Kentucky’s defense was really the key to the win because the ‘Cats only allowed Georgia to hit two field goal in the final 6:30, one coming with 12 seconds left, right after they had stormed back on a run to close the gap. The Wildcats allowed almost no open shots all game.

The second KEY TO THE GAME that Kentucky completed last night was Kentucky’s ability to force turnovers. Kentucky forced 10 turnovers yesterday, which may not seem like a lot, but Kentucky only commited 8 themselves. The last time Kentucky commited less turnovers than their opponent was January 15 in a loss at Mississippi State, in other words it had been 8 games since UK last won the turnover battle. Kentucky also scored 10 points off their forced turnovers, any time you have equal or more points off turnovers than forced turnovers that is good, that means they are capitalizing on their oppurtunities and playing smart with the ball once they get it. Any time that UK can get high percentage shots and they convert they will usually win because in a lot of their losses a key has been the lack of capitalizing on scoring oppurtunities so those are basically like free points to them and they will take them any time that they can get them because they are smart enough to know that without the easy points it is very hard to win ball games, especially against good teams in the SEC like Tennessee, Mississippi State & Florida, and wins over teams like those can help your tournament resume’ a lot.

The third KEY TO THE GAME that Kentucky completed was to feed Patrick Patterson the ball. Patterson had been getting less and less touches each game for a while until last night, but against Georgia he got the ball numerous times down low in scoring positions and 9 out of 10 times when he is in that kind of position he will beat his opponent. Patterson plays too hard and is too determined to be denied from scoring if he feels like he should score, even Dennis Felton, Georgia’s head coach, said that Patterson is a special player and physically is NBA ready. Any player that has that much of a physical advantage automatically has an overall advantage because they can force situations in their favor. For example if they are trying to back someone down and then spin on them, if they are physically ready to play in the NBA they can make a person get backed down and spin even if the other player knows he is going to do it. Patterson’s 20 points was the most he has had since January 26, or 3 1/2 weeks. Patterson should consistently be getting 20 points like he was in the beginning of the year against the lesser competition. Patterson really helped his own cause by hitting the mid range jump shot and not letting the Georgia players double team him everywhere he went.

Surprise of the Game

The Surpise of the Game (SOG) was the defensive job that the UK players, mainly Ramon Harris, did on Sundiata Gaines. I was afraid that Gaines was going to torch the Wildcats for 20+ points and was going to maybe single handedly beat us without the help of his teammates. Gaines was face guarded all over the court and only scored 10 points, the least amount of points he has scored in his last 6 games. Georgia is now only 3-5 when Gaines scores under 10 points so the way to beat the Georgia Bulldogs it seems like it to guard him straight up and hold him to single digits. In my opinion if Sundiata Gaines had gotten his usual 15-18 points I believe Georgia would have been much closer at the beginning and throughout the whole game and the game would have come down to the final minutes instead of UK leading the whole game.

NEXT GAME

Feb. 23 vs. Arkansas

2:00 pm EST on CBS

UK vs. Georgia – Preview

The last time these two teams squared off Kentucky had just a 9-9 record and came into Athens already battered and bruised, when they left they might as well been a walking hospital. On Feburary 2nd UK traveled to Athens, Georgia and got a very much needed road victory over a club that had been a perfect 10-0 prior to the game. UK showed a lot of grit in that game, overcoming a hard foul by Dave Bliss on Ramel Bradley that sent Bradley to the locker room for the rest of the game with a concussion, winning 63-58. This time around UK is in a different situation, they have won 6 of 7 games and have won 3 in a row at Rupp Arena. Ramel Bradley is 100% healthy and should play with the thoughts of the last meeting on his mind as he steps on the court to face the Bulldogs. Kentucky has played very well at home as of late and will be the pre game favorite to win the game. Georgia has been very tough to shake the last few games, they lost to a very good Tennessee team by only 3 points in their last game, again being led by senior guard Sundiata Gaines, who torched the ‘Cats for 15 points in the earlier meeting. Georgia will not get blown out by the Wildcats, if in fact Kentucky wins, so UK better come into the game knowing this and play smart basketball for 40 minutes.

KEYS TO THE GAME

I said in the first meeting that UK had to: Contain Sundiata Gaines, force turnovers, and drive the lane and create free-throw oppurtunities for themselves. In that matchup UK only completed one of the KEYS but still managed to pull out the win, this time around two of the KEYS TO THE GAME will be the same. The first KEY TO THE GAME will again be to slow down Sundiata Gaines. I do not believe that we can fully stop him but I think if we play smart against him we will be able to make him basically a non factor. Gaines a lot of times lives and dies by the three-point shot so some of the task falls on him missing shots. In the first meeting Michael Porter got the responsibility of guarding Gaines and it did not work out too well. Porter though does not play as many minutes now as he did then so I would suspect that Ramel Bradley will be the one guarding him and Bradley is the team’s best defender when he puts his mind to it. When Kentucky went up against Tennessee earlier this season it was Bradley who stepped up in the second half and guarded Chris Lofton and basically made him a non factor until the final minute.

The second KEY TO THE GAME that is the same is Kentucky needs to force turnovers for some easy buckets. Kentucky gets stuck in their half court offense too much and that leads to empty possessions when you do not have a guy that can take his man to the hole any time he wants. Forcing turnovers gets you easy points and Kentucky needs all the points they can get. The last time these teams met UK only forced 7 turnovers and only scored 11 points off those turnovers. Kentucky has trouble forcing turnovers and making them count by scoring on the other end, the ‘Cats need to find a way to score off turnovers and that will make the game a lot easier for them and it will make it much easier to win.

The third KEY TO THE GAME is for UK to feed Patrick Patterson the ball! Patterson seems to get less and less touches each game and I have no idea why because he is our most efficient scorer. Patterson is shooting near 60% on the year, much better than anyone else on the team, so if we can find ways to get Patterson the ball I do not see any reason why we should not win because almost every time he gets the ball in a scoring position he scores. Even though Patterson will be double teamed there will still be ways to get him the ball, for example in the last game against LSU the Tigers were double teaming Patterson and fronting him in the post, all we had to do was lob the ball and Patterson got two easy alleyoops. By getting Patterson the ball it also opens up scoring oppurtunities for the other players because Patterson is double teamed and all eyes will be on him so if he makes a strong pass to anyone on the court they should be open for a shot.

My prediciton for tomorrow’s game at home against the Georgia Bulldogs is that UK wins by a score of 62-55. I believe that Billy Gillispie will wisely put Ramel Bradley on Sundiata Gaines and I believe Gaines will not be a very big factor. As long as the Wildcats get the ball to Patrick Patterson I think they will be fine because there is no one on the Georgia roster that can guard Patterson one-on-one and almost none of them can double team him effectively. I think Ramel Bradley leads the team in scoring with 21 points and I think Patterson goes for 18 points and 8 rebounds.

NEXT GAME

Feb. 19 vs. Georgia

9:00 pm EST on ESPN

Kentucky Greats: #25, Chuck Hayes

Chuck Hayes was one of the most beloved players in UK history in his four years as a Wildcat between 2001-2002 through 2004-2005 for his hustle and determination to win. Hayes was a very smart player who always put his team before himself, he did whatever it took to win, even if that meant risking himself to do so. Hayes ranks 25th on our list because he always hustled and represented the Wildcats well, his teams were very good while he was there, and he had the accolades that rank up there with the best that have ever donned the Blue and White.

• Hayes ranks 7th on the Kentucky Wildcats all-time rebounds list with 910 rebounds in his career
• Ranks 36th all-time in points with 1211 career points
• Hayes was a member of the 2003 team that went 32-4 for the season including 16-0 in the SEC, one of the only UK teams to go through their conference undefeated
• Hayes was 109-25 in his career at Kentucky, an 81% winning percentage
• Hayes ranks 8th on the school’s all-time steals list with 169, 3rd among all non-guards
• Was a Parade All-American and California Mr.Basketball in 2001