Kentucky handles mismatch with Auburn, 91-67

By: LARRY VAUGHT

NASHVILLE — The game figured to be a mismatch even before Auburn suspended leading rebounder Cinmeon Bowers, and it was.

Kentucky used a 14-0 run midway of the second half to end Auburn’s Cinderella run at the Southeastern Conference Tournament in a 91-67 beatdown Saturday that sends the No. 1 Cats into Sunday’s conference title game before UK makes its 54th NCAA Tournament appearance a few days later.

The game got a bit chippy early with Andrew Harrison and Tyler Ulis both inciting the UK crowd but Bruce Pearl’s team did not back down, but the Tigers had no answers for UK’s size and it was obvious why Pearl said earlier this season that his team could beat any SEC team except Kentucky.

The unbeaten Wildcats had five players in double figures by midway of the second half and the best part for the Cats had to be the re-emergence offensively of Willie Cauley-Stein. He doesn’t have to score to change a game — he had seven rebounds, thre blocks and guarded the point guard at times — but when he also scores 18 points and dishes out two assists the Cats are near unbeatable.

He had gone seven games without scoring in double figures after a three-game stretch where he had 13, 15 and 14 points. Against Florida Friday, he was 2-for-9 from the field and too tentative at the rim. Against Auburn, he dominated like a player his size should and even hit two outside jump shots that NBA scouts had to love seeing.

“It helps a lot when Willie does all he can do,” said freshman point guard Tyler Ulis, who did his part with six points, six assists, five rebounds and two steals. “He’s great offensively and defensively and when he is going like that, it’s hard to stop us. He’s focused more offensively and has a lot of confidence.

“Him and Andrew (Harrison) joke that he can’t shoot, but he thinks he can and now he will really believe he can shoot. But we are going to keep feeding him.”

Cauley-Stein was only 2-for-9 from the field against Florida Friday. He was 7-for-9 Saturday, maybe in part because he was inspired when Auburn’s Antoine Mason talked trash in the second half with UK already way ahead.

“I didn’t know what the dude was thinking,” Cauley-Stein said.

The junior center said he was fading away from the basket too much against Florida and was tentative.

“Today I knew what I was doing. I was going to the basket more. I didn’t take all those off balanced shots,” he said.

Cauley-Stein quickly noted that UK’s win was about more than him. Point guard Andrew Harrison had 15 points and four assists. Aaron Harrison, Devin Booker and Trey Lyles had 12 apiece. Booker also had six rebounds and two assists. Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t have a field goal for the first time this season but he went 8-for-8 at the foul line and also grabbed six rebounds and blocked three shots.

“The ball was falling for us and their best player (KT Harrell) was not hitting shots (1-for-12). That just made it a lot easier,” Cauley-Stein said without pointing out that he was guarding the smaller Harrell many times when he made shots.

“It was something for us to see we can do this,” UK coach John Calipari said about Cauley-Stein’s defense. “They have a guy that is hurting us, ‘Willie, you’ll guard him.’ That was good for us.”

Pearl said it was about more than just that.

“John (Calipari) is running great stuff. The stuff they run is as good as there is in college basketball,” Pearl said. “It’s hard to guard. So even if he doesn’t have very good players, what he’s running is really good. Then when you run it with great players, it’s hard to beat.”

Especially with Cauley-Stein doing what he did on offense to go along with the other scorers UK has.

“It just makes everything easy for everybody when he plays like that,” Booker said.

Backup center Marcus Lee said what Cauley-Stein did is what players see daily from him.

“We think it is unusual when he is not at his best,” Lee said.

Don’t try telling Lee that Cauley-Stein could do that more often if he was more unselfish.

“What he did today was unselfish,” Lee said. “He did what we asked of him. When we need something, he gets it done. That’s being unselfish to help the team.”

Whatever you want to call it, Calipari liked it.

“Willie was what you saw today,” Calipari said. “That’s Willie when you say, ‘Wow.’”

When that happens, a team that has yet to be beat is just that much harder to beat.

“What I think I was doing in the beginning of the year was just making sure I’m going to lock down on defense and then if offense happens, then it happens. Today it just happened,” Cauley-Stein said. “So that’s kind of my game plan going into the rest of these games.”