Jerry Tipton on UK basketball

Kentucky needs Patrick Patterson to play well to improve its chances of beating arch-rival Louisville on Saturday, UK Coach Billy Gillispie said.

But Kentucky needs Patterson to play well in every game.

“Patrick’s got to play well for us,” Gillispie said at a news conference on Friday. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a great team or a team that has improvement to make.”

Louisville, 9-4, qualifies as one of the better teams Kentucky will face in the pre-conference portion of the schedule.

Of course, Patterson’s play (he leads UK in scoring, rebounding and shot-blocking) is no secret to opponents.

“People are going to take away things you do well,” Gillispie said.

Among the signatures of U of L Coach Rick Pitino’s career is taking away the opponent’s No. 1 strength. Most notably, he collapsed defenders around Wake Forest’s Tim Duncan in the 1996 NCAA Tournament.

Gillispie expressed confidence in Patterson’s ability to handle trapping defenses.

“He does well,” the UK coach said. “Other pieces have to be in the right spots. He’s probably handled it better than we have.”

That means UK’s perimeter shooters must be in the right spots to receive passes from Patterson. Then those shooters must make the shots.

After UK made 11 of 22 three-point shots against his team this week, Florida International Coach Sergio Rouco questioned whether the Cats could shoot like that two straight games.

His question will be answered against Louisville.

Meanwhile, Patterson’s good play goes unrecognized. Normally, he is not mentioned in a discussion of the nation’s best freshmen this season.

“It’s our fault,” Gillispie said. “We haven’t played very well. He’s probably been overlooked for that reason.”