Joe Crawford returned to the starting lineup last night. He used the occasion to remind everyone he was Kentucky’s leading returning scorer from last season.
Crawford scored a career-high 32 points to lead UK to a 83-35 victory over Texas Southern.
Crawford’s scoring balanced a suffocating defensive performance. Coach Billy Gillispie had said he wanted his team to be unrelenting. That the Cats were in holding Texas Southern to the fewest points scored by a UK opponent since a 96-32 victory over Morehead State on Dec. 16, 1995.
Kentucky, 3-1, provided a salve for fans still hurting from the 52-50 overtime loss to Tennessee at Commonwealth Stadium earlier in the day.
This game was no contest as Kentucky won by the widest margin since a 106-44 humiliating of Vanderbilt on March 5, 2003.
Freshman Patrick Patterson, who was coming off a 23-point, 10-rebound performance against Liberty, contributed 21 points and seven rebounds.
Ramel Bradley flirted with a triple-double. He had 17 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.
Kentucky plays next against Stony Brook on Tuesday before making a big-time step up in class against North Carolina next Saturday.
Jerry Tipton of the Lexington Herald- Leader has covered Kentucky basketball since the 1981-82 season. That time includes five coaches, five Final Fours, four athletic directors, two interim athletic directors and many memories. Before coming to Lexington, Tipton worked eight years for the Huntington (W.Va.) Herald-Dispatch. He covered Marshall’s basketball team for two seasons before coming to the Herald-Leader.
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