On January 12, 2008 the Vanderbilt Commodores looked to come into Rupp Arena and knockout the Wildcats who had a dismal record of 8-7 on the season. The most recent blow came from instate rival Louisville who defeated Kentucky on their home court just a week earlier. Early in the season the Cats suffered morale-deflating losses against Gardner-Webb, Houston and San-Diego. Although there was a lot of early season disappointment the Wildcats weren’t about to give us and Refused to Lose against the undefeated Commodores.
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Kentucky jumped out in the first half with an early lead. It seemed that UK pulling out the win was an impossible task with a shorter bench and the stigma of the earlier losses. At the end of the first half, Kentucky had a 10 point lead and took it up to a 16 point lead in the second half. The Commodores weren’t going to be denied a continuation of their perfect season without a fight. They rallied back to tie the Wildcats at 65 at the end of regulation to send the game into overtime.
During overtime, the game went back and forth with both teams seemingly matching each other play for play. After an additional 5 minutes of play the game was still tied, this time at 72. Going into the second overtime, Rupp Arena was exploding with excitement and seemed to provide the energy the Wildcats needed to keep pace. Vanderbilt had a horrible second OT only making 1 free throw and no field goals while Kentucky scored 7 points and took the win 79-73.
“It says that we are going to fight,” sophomore Ramon Harris said. “This is what Coach wanted and has been saying and we really showed it. I think he’s very proud because we fought an we fought and we fought. I think we competed as hard as we could, laid it all on the line and played with some pride and some heart. I think we showed that we are a team that is going to fight. We are not going to get back in the national rankings or anything like that after one game so we are going to take it one at a time and let the media and everyone do what they do and we’ll do what we do.”
“We had to take this, we had to earn it,” Bradley said. “Those guys kept fighting back and we went to overtime, made some plays, went to another overtime, so this really boosted our confidence. I looked in guys’ eyes and they were ready.”
Every Point Scored:
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