The Kentucky Wildcats were in New Orleans, Louisiana tonight to take on the Louisville Cardinals in the Final Four. The instate rivalry spilled over this week into a national phenomenon. And regardless of what side you were on, one thing was clear, basketball in the state of Kentucky would never be the same after this game.
Starting five: Marquis Teague, Doron Lamb, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, and Anthony Davis.
Marquis Teague scored Kentucky’s first four points and Doron Lamb had Kentucky’s next four to give UK eight unanswered. With two and half minutes gone, Rick Pitino’s eyes were already doing that crazy, bulgy, walleye vision thing as he was called for a time out.
While UK’s guards were off and running on offense, the front court was doing work on D, as Davis and MKG had early boards and Jones had an early block.
Just as Kentucky looked to blow the game open and MKG negated a Chane Behanan transition dunk, Kyle Kuric got the board and put it back for an and-1 opportunity and more importantly, slowed UK’s momentum…at least momentarily.
Enter the Player of the Year, Anthony Davis dropped a couple of buckets and continued to rebound and block everything in sight. Everything accept Chane Behanan’s second missed dunk for on the other end.
With fourteen minutes to go in the half, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist picked up his second foul and 500[SUP]th[/SUP] charge of the season, he sat down. This would be a problem, accept Kentucky had their foot firmly on the Cardinals’ throats at this point, they were up by ten.
No sooner than I typed this, Louisville remembered how to make a layup while UK decided to practice missing jumpers for about three minutes. At the end of this exchange, the CATS were still up six.
Over the next few minutes, UK took it back inside and stretched their lead back to ten. Meanwhile the Cardinals, visibly frustrated by UK’s defense, continued to struggle. They were 5-19 from the floor.
Out of the under eight time-out, and with Kyle Wiltjer filling in for MKG, Rick Pitino was trying to take advantage of just about the only thing he could by sending Gorgui Dieng right at Wiltjer. K-Wilt was holding his own though, and the CATS continued to stay up around a ten point lead.
Peyton Siva picked up his second foul with five minutes to go in the half. UL’s defensive pressure was now causing as many problems for themselves as the CATS. The press was affecting UK as well though and as they turned it over, resulting in a Russ Smith layup, Coach Cal called a timeout to steady his player’s hands.
Doron Lamb converted an and-1 out of the huddle but Louisville woke up off of a Chane Behanan dunk (made) and a Kyle Kuric three.
There were less than two minutes to go in the half when Marquis Teague made an errant pass which resulted in a Gorgui Dieng dunk and-1 to pull UL within three. Kyle Wiltjer responded with a traditional three of his own and then forced a turnover. Doron Lamb got to the line and stretched Kentucky’s lead to seven.
The Cats went to the locker room, up 35-28, in what started out looking like it would be a cake walk, but turned into a bit of a fight. The difference in the beginning and end of the half was clearly a missing MKG.
Chris Smith hit a big three for UL to open up the second half and pull the Cards within four points. Kidd-Gilchrist had missed a drive prior to this and then was unable to inbound over UL’s press after. Time out UK, as a cold and befuddled MKG walked to the huddle.
Out of the time out and up five, Kentucky looked to slow thing s down a bit. Louisville was in a zone and as UK rotated the ball around it, Darius Miller found the opening and got in the middle for a short J. He followed this up with a steal and another bucket. Miller time! Cats up eleven.
Now the Cats were also applying a little pressure of their own on D and looking to end any ideas the Cards might have of making this a contest down the stretch.
With no points in the game and a mountain of frustration on his in eyes, MKG picked up his third foul and second charge (on a garbage call) with fourteen minutes to go. He would sit down again, however only four a minute. Seemingly due to MKG’s absence for a large part of the game, UL had out rebounded UK on the offensive end to the tune of 15-2. This was one of the biggest reasons that UL was anywhere near the CATS.
The Cards pulled within four points at just above eleven minutes to go. The Cats looked shook, Terrence Jones looked non-existent and Cal looked on the verge of a coronary. Darius Miller committed a foul which at least stopped the madness long enough for a TV time out.
MKG scored his first point with ten minutes to go in the game. This also put UK in the bonus. Following a Siva bucket which put UL within three points, MKG got back to the line but missed both. On the next trip, Siva hit a three to tie it up. despite a cold hand, MKG would not stop. He finally scored from the field on the next possession to put UK back on top. Next trip, dunk by MKG. Time out by Ricky P.
Kentucky did not stop from here and found them selves up by nine points, thanks in large part to Mr. Darius Miller, with four minutes to go.
The Cats had held UL without a field goal for nearly five minutes and only allowed the Cards two second changes in the last eight minutes.
With two minutes to go, UK was up by seven points. Louisville did not want to go away, but Kentucky was just not going to let them get close enough to stretch out the final moments.
Anthony Davis had a one handed dunk from an alley-oop with about fifty seconds to go that was the punctuation at the end of this game’s statement. The Cards gave UK one helluva a game, but in the end it was not enough as UK won 69-61.
Thank God for Anthony Davis, he is the player of the game as well as the…ever. He led the Cats with Eighteen points, fourteen rebounds, and five blocks. Darius Miller willed the Cats to stay in the game when things could have been slipping away. He had thirteen points.
The Cats will take on the winner of the Ohio State-Kansas game Monday night for a National-freaking Championship. Now If you will excuse me, I am off to pack my bags and head to NOLA to watch it in person. Check me out at @JosephBakerNob on Twitter for updates from Blue Orleans!
