For 20 minutes, it looked like the season was over.
Kentucky was down 16 at the break, the offense was stagnant, and the energy was non-existent. In the postgame press conference, Mark Pope didn’t mince words about what he saw in that opening stanza.
"The guys were invested, [but] it was nice coming in at halftime after just an abysmal first half," Pope admitted. "Credit to LSU... defensively, they were a real problem for us in the first half... our energy wasn’t great."
But then, everything flipped.
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The huddle before the miracle
When Kentucky called their final timeout with 1.9 seconds left, trailing by one, the season hung in the balance.
Pope drew up a play, but what happened on the court wasn't exactly what was on the whiteboard. It didn't matter for a team that avoided dropping to 10-7.
"Well, there is a bunch of dynamics in there," Pope said, pulling back the curtain on the final sequence. "We kind of tagged Kam [Williams] as the guy to make that pass. There really is no option, you have to throw it over half court, you really do."
But in the heat of the moment, it was Collin Chandler who asked to step up.
"Collin [Chandler] was a gamer and said, 'I got this.'"
The plan was to get the ball to a guard, specifically Denzel Aberdeen, for a shot inside the arc or a runner. The 7-foot center was the safety valve.
"We were hoping to get something inside the 3-point line," Pope explained. "I told Malachi as we were walking out, 'If it goes long, take your time, turn around and shoot it.' Picture perfect."
Moreno did exactly that. He caught the overthrown pass like a tight end, turned, and buried the jumper. Chandler hasn't spoken on whether he was aiming for Moreno or not, so we won't say for sure, but based on these comments, it wasn't designed that way.
Kentucky basketball refused to fold
This wasn't just a win; it was an exorcism. This team has been through the wringer, and Pope acknowledged the weight they have been carrying.
"This has been an incredibly emotionally taxing season for our guys, a lot of it brought on by ourselves," Pope said. "There were hundreds of times they could have just said 'it's not our night,' and they wouldn't."
A major reason for the turnaround was a halftime adjustment to the way Kentucky defended LSU's ball screens, which had torched them early.
"We went to switching ball screens and really being liberal with our ball screens," Pope said. "It really helped us a lot in the second half. The fact that our bigs can switch... is great. The game slowed down a little bit. It got them out of the rhythm they were in." LSU had just 36 points in the second half, getting outscored by 17.
This small switch, flipped the switch in the team and allowed them to play much freer. It was a season saving adjustment for Kentucky.
"I'll take the win, baby"
The execution wasn't perfect. The screening in the first half was soft: "We weren’t running all the way to bodies," and the offense was often bailed out by individual brilliance from guys like Otega Oweh and Andrija Jelavic.
But after a night where everything went wrong, the only thing that mattered was the final score.
"Of course, there was some doubt, but the guys refused to go away," Pope said. "I'll take the win, baby, let's go."
Let's go indeed.