Kentucky Basketball: Willis Dunk Ignited Cats’ Second Half

Kentucky Basketball: Derek Willis brought down the house with a thunderous dunk, igniting a run that ultimately beat South Carolina

Derek Willis was huge tonight in Kentucky’s pivotal win over South Carolina, previously unbeaten in conference play, the victory helping the Cats maintain a stranglehold on the SEC race for a season championship.

The senior forward came off the bench, getting extended minutes with both De’Aaron Fox and Mychal Mulder out of the the game, and the Kentucky native delivered. Willis scored 12 points, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked a shot, giving the Cats a much-need lift in a game where the Gamecocks put up plenty of fight. South Carolina pressured the ball, played physical defense and tested Kentucky with a couple of runs that put the game in question.

And then with 17:01 remaining in the second half, and Kentucky leading by seven, Wills blew the roof off Rupp Arena. Senior Dominique Hawkins found Willis cutting down the lane, and then Willis absolutely posterized a South Carolina defender, igniting the Wildcat faithful.

“I feel like that definitely sparked us up,” said Dominique Hawkins. “I’ve never seen Derek dunk on anybody like that before, so everybody was just excited and surprised that he did it. It’s great to see Derek do so well. He’s been here for four years, just like me, so I’m proud of him.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve dunked like that,” Willis explained. I caught somebody before I hit the rim. It felt really good. I got the crowd going and our team got rolling with it as well.”

For Coach Cal, even after the game, he still felt the visceral impact of the play, with the native son electrifying the crowd. “How about Derek’s dunk? I mean, that was crazy,” Calipari said. 

But as good as the dunk was, and it was no doubt a huge momentum swing in the game, Willis’ play was much more than a single, sensational play. In the second half, Willis entered the game 18:28 remaining, the Cats holding a 47-42 lead.

Over approximately the next seven minutes, Willis’ impact included seven points, a block, assist and a rebound, while the Cats extended its lead to 66-54, a margin of +7 when Willis left the game. The senior returned about 20 seconds later, and the Cats had given one of those points back.

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Then over the next four minutes, Willis grabbed two more boards as the Cats extended the lead to 72-57, a +4 margin with Willis on the court. Finally, Willis’ last stretch of play covered much of the final seven minutes, where the senior grabbed another rebound and the Cats blew the game open, leading 85-65, a +5 scoring margin, when Willis, Briscoe, Adebayo, Monk and Gabriel checked out for good.

All totaled, Willis’s minutes in the second half, 15 minutes or so, lead to a scoring margin of +16 – exactly Kentucky’s margin of victory over the Gamecocks.

“He always kills us,” said South Carolina coach Frank Martin. “Willis always gets us. We tried real hard to prepare for those corner 3’s and my big guys didn’t play well. We were bad yesterday in practice and I’m just telling you. We gave them open shots, they made a couple tough ones. Give that kid (Willis) credit. Upperclassmen making plays to help his team. He always gets us, but I knew we were not going to be defensively any good today. We picked the wrong team to be bad on defense against. We went to that zone and it kind of settled things down and obviously (De’Aaron) Fox going out of the game impacts them offensively, but then coming down the stretch, we had some bad breakdowns defensively and they made open shots so give them credit.”

It was team victory, in every sense of the word. Monk was huge, as was Adebayo. Gabriel was every bit as big as Willis, Humphries was a big presence off the bench, and Hawkins steadied the Cats offensively, while delivering his usual toughness on the ball defensively.

But Derek Wills provided the spark today in the second half. And it made a huge difference in Kentucky claiming the top spot in the SEC.