Wildcats edge Tar Heels 68-66 in early season statement win
By Staff
Make no mistake. These are a different breed of Wildcats storming into the ’10 decade of the 21st century than the Cats UK fans were accustomed to in the ’00 decade. In today’s game against the North Carolina Tarheels, the Wildcat’s showed the nation just how scary good they can be — and just how how young and inexperienced they really are. In the end, “scary good” trumped “young an inexperienced” but it was an close battle.
The Tar Heels stormed out to a 9-2 lead and immediately thoughts of a “not ready for prime time performance” panicked the Big Blue Nation. Darius Miller hit a couple of 3-pointers to key a 16-0 UK run that brought Rupp Arena into a state of euphoria not witnessed in about four seasons or so. A Larry Drew II jumper stopped that streak but then the Wildcats blitzkrieged the Tar Heels with another 12 point streak highlighted by 2 Darnell Dodson 3-pointers and UK was off to a 30-11 lead over the #10 Tar Heels with 8:44 left in the first half.
About this time, the game began to change slightly. Roy Williams, realizing that his team could not run with UK began to slow the game down and made numerous attempts to get the margin under 10 but that never happened. John Wall scored 6 points in a span of about 3:00 to keep the Heels at bay and a Patrick Patterson 3-pointer quelled another UNC rally to make the score 43-28 and provided the margin at half.
And what a half it was for UK, who shot 57.1 from the field, compared to UNC’s 35.5. UK was aided by hitting 6 of 9 3-pointers and were led by John Wall and Patrick Patterson with 13 and 11 points. This is what UK fans envisioned when John Calipari took the reigns on April 1.
The big knock against UK was that they were “too young and inexperienced” to make a serious run at a title this year. In the second half, that youth and inexperienced started to show. It does not help that John Wall went out of the game with a cramp with 18:53 left. It was as if North Carolina was shown the path to get back into the game and with a team like UNC, they kicked that door in.
The Tar Heels rode their inside game and Deon Thompson hard and cut the UK lead to 45-38 with 16:20 remaining. Patrick Patterson and Eric Bledsoe scored to boost the lead back up to 11 and you got the idea that UK was not going to just roll over for the Tar Heels. Patterson later scored on back to back possessions and UK built their lead up to 13 as the Tar Heels had rouble breaking that 10 point barrier, Wall or no Wall.
A David Wear 3-pointer cut the lead to 54-49 with around 9:00 left and once again, the ghosts of seasons past surrounded the Wildcats, but Patterson was having none of that as he answered the rally with a jumper and Dodson hit a jumper as the Wildcats refused to surrender. Around this time, UK found it’s freshman corps of Bledsoe, Cousins, and Orton in serious foul trouble with 4 fouls each. The most important thing though is that John Wall had re-emerged on the court, and even though a grimace hid his customary smile, a Wall at 80% is far better than what UK had at PG in the last couple of games against the Tar Heels.
A Tyler Zeller jumper pulled the Heels to within three at 59-56 but Eric Bledsoe hit a pair of free throws at 2:31 remaining. John Wall stole the ball and later assisted an Bledsoe layup that gave UK a brief sense of security and a 7 point lead for about three seconds when a Will Graves trey made the score 63-59 with 1:45 left. Kentucky burnt some clock and then Bledso made an inexplicable freshman turnover that led to UNC cutting the lead to 63-61 with :35 left. Bledsoe atoned for his error by hitting 3 of 4 FT’s down the stretch and John Wall added two more clutch FT’s to seal the deal. A last second UNC 3 pointer provided the final margin as UK went to 8-0 for the first time since 1992-1993, when they started 11-0.
Patrick Patterson led the way with 19 points on 8-12 shooting and John Wall added 16.
For complete game stats. go here.
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