Crawford's condition pleases Gillispie

[ImForKy]

Kentucky Coach Billy Gillispie and senior Joe Crawford looked like bosom buddies as they walked off the court together after the 79-73 victory over Vanderbilt on Saturday.

But Crawford expects his coach to quickly resume being the never-happy taskmaster.
"He's going to continue to be on me and the rest of the team because he knows we can play better," Crawford said.
For much of the season, Gillispie shrugged figuratively and sometimes literally when asked about a Crawford contribution. Suddenly in the last few days, Crawford makes the coach gush.
"He was great all day long," Gillispie said. "I don't think anybody ever said this to Joe: 'You have to be more aggressive on offense.' I kept telling him that the entire time. I don't know if he had any juice left."

Practice lightens?
Stevenson and Patterson credited a lighter practice load to UK's improved play.
Instead of a high-intensity practice the day of the game, the Cats only had a morning walk-through on Saturday. "It definitely helped, especially having a game like this," Stevenson said of the two-overtime grinder. "I think Coach Gillispie can kind of tell the future. He didn't make us go through a tough practice because he knew we were going to play a couple overtimes. And it definitely helped us."
Patterson, who along with Bradley played all 50 minutes, said UK's practices last week were demanding, but less intense and of shorter duration.
"Everybody's having a lot more fun," Patterson said. "Everybody's starting to believe in Coach and his ways and tactics. We had a great mindset coming in this time."

http://www.kentucky.com/276/story/284974.html

[CatClaws1]

Something different besides easier practices must have happened this week because I played against Stevenson,Mills, Stewart, Williams, and Scherbenske twice last week in the Johnson Center.

[poodoo]

Stevenson and Patterson credited a lighter practice load to UK's improved play.
Instead of a high-intensity practice the day of the game, the Cats only had a morning walk-through on Saturday. QUOTE
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Oh, THANK YOU, Coach Gillispie. Too, while I never like to be critical, that is something that had really bothered me. In particular, as I had watched the G-W game at Rupp, I had seen players with no energy, players who could barely move and made G-W appear to be much faster than our UK players (and, of course, in that case the grueling morning practice before the game had followed a late game the previous evening. Again, thank you, Coach Gillispie! :)