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The thousands of big blue faithful may not have gotten what they expected this weekend, but I can guarantee they are not going home disappointed. In a game that consistently went back and forth and Kentucky never truly seemed to put a run together to create enough distance from Vanderbilt. Cats fall in the 2012 SEC tournament championship game, 71-64.
The Cats started strong but Vandy quickly recovered with John Jenkins splashing a few threes, putting the Cats in a hole early going down by 8. Soon after this trigged a Kentucky run showcasing a couple three’s by Kyle Wiltjer along with gritty play from Senior Darius Miller.
Miller, who started the game in place of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, started the first half slow before roaring back with several clutch jumpers. After being down eight in the first half, Kentucky and Vandy went into the locker room tied at 37.
The second half was a battle between the two teams with the score fluctuating back and forth throughout almost the entire half. The Cats got the lead up to 6 off of a Darius Miller three with 9:45 left in the game. The crowd was loud and the sense in the air was that Kentucky would bring home their 28[SUP]th[/SUP] SEC tournament championship.
Not so fast my friend.
When you play Vandy, 6 points is easy to overcome with the deadly three point shooters on their team. Not to mention Taylor had his way with Teague at times with two drives to the basket ending in an “and one” situation.
The Wildcats then went on a scoring drought to close the half as Vanderbilt went on to win only their second SEC tournament championship, the first one since 1951…oh yeah, and in 1951 they beat Kentucky in that title game, which saw the Cats to go on to win the National Championship.
Now we can officially close the first two chapters of this season, what is up next is what these guys play for. The NCAA tournament is where dreams become reality and the reality for these Cats looks brighter than ever.
GO.CATS.
[I]Follow Courtney Deuser on[/I] [I]Twitter [/I][I][URL=”http://twitter.com/wildcatty11″]@Wildcatty11 [/URL][/I][I]for[/I] [I]more UK sports insight.[/I]
