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  • Kentucky survives physical game with Cincinnati, wins 64-51

    By: LARRY VAUGHT

    LOUISVILLE — It wasn’t exactly like a street fight, but perhaps it was close.

    “It reminded me more of AAU ball with all the talking and stuff. But it was fun and we were not going to back down. We got out of our game a little bit but it is going to take more than trash talk to beat us,” said Kentucky sophomore guard Andrew Harrison after No. 1 UK survived a physical battle to oust Cincinnati 64-51 here Saturday.

    The game played just the way the underdog Bearcats wanted:

    — Kentucky was just 4-for-15 from 3-point range, including 0-for-5 by Devin Booker.

    — Cincinnati grabbed 21 offensive rebounds and outrebounded UK 45-38. They also blocked six shots, something that normally does not happen to UK.

    — The Bearcats were perhaps as physical and aggressive as any team UK has played all year.

    Yet when it mattered most, Cincinnati had no answer for UK’s defense or the clutch play the Wildcats have had all season. Kentucky used a 10-0 run to end the first half fueled by Willie Cauley-Stein’s monster dunk to take a 31-24 lead and then gradually kept the lead between 10 and 15 points the rest of the way.

    In what has been the norm this year, Kentucky did not have a standout but rather a collection of players who found ways to contribute to the win.

    Aaron Harrison, the hero of last year’s NCAA run, had 13 points and made big 3-point shots when needed. Freshman Trey Lyles had 11 points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and one steal while playing fearlessly against the aggressive Bearcats. Freshman Karl-Anthony Towns had eight of UK’s first 10 points and even though he didn’t score again he had seven rebounds and three blocks.

    Freshman Tyler Ulis was Ulis-like with nine points, five assists, three steals and even three rebounds. Cauley-Stein was not dominant, but he had nine points, two blocks, two rebounds, one assist and one steal.

    “Everybody just finds a way to contribute,” Towns said. “That’s what we have done all year and did again.”

    Cincinnati players made it clear after beating Purdue in overtime Thursday that they would not back down from UK and felt “Bearcat basketball” would take a toll on Kentucky.

    “It was very physical,” Ulis admitted. “But we were prepared for a fight like this. We didn’t back down. We just fight through stuff. We felt there were a lot of calls we should have got, but you can’t just cry foul. You’ve got to play. We played a high level of defense, blocked a lot of shots. That’s why we won.”

    High level of defense? Maybe it was above that. Cincinnati shot just 31.7 percent and was only 9-for-37 — 24.3 percent — the second half. The Bearcats were 2-for-14 from 3-point range. They also had 14 turnovers that led to 16 UK points.

    “It was kind of like the Louisville game here (in the Yum! Center),” Ulis said. “We didn’t shoot well (20 of 54 for 37 percent) but we locked down on defense. Teams have to try and play this way against us. They’ve got to do something to try and win. We just play through it.”

    That’s why coach John Calipari was most pleased with the “half-court defense” his team had.

    “You better play half-court defense in this tourney,” the UK coach said.

    “We showed we can win a game with defense again,” Towns said. “We did a bad job of reboudning, especially me. No matter how many misses a team has, you have to rebound. But we showed we could play the game they wanted and still win. That’s what matters. It was very physical. We just had to be mindful of some things and not do anything stupid.”

    Cincinnati players did not want to credit the UK defense for changing the game.

    “I don't think they handled our physicality very well throughout the game. Mental lapses that happened on the offensive end was why we lost the game. It wasn't nothing that they did,” Cincinnati’s Jermaine Sanders, who had three points, said. “We got point blank shots that we just missed. It wasn't anything they did defensively that made it tough for us to score. We got shots we wanted, but it just didn't go down. Sometimes it happens like that.”

    Wait. There’s more?

    “I think that we rattled them with our physicality. I don't think they were ready for it. Usually, they go against teams that back down, and I think that we were ready for the fight from beginning to end. That kind of got them a little rattled,” Sanders said. “I think they're a very beatable team. You just can't give them anything easy. They feed off of transition buckets and easy like layups and things like that. So you just can't give them anything easy. Make it tough for their big guys to score around the rim.

    Cauley-Stein, never one to shy away from blunt comment, said the Cats felt disrespected at times by the way Cincinnati trash talked during the game. He also said Cincinnati was not as physical as the Cincy players said they were.

    “I thought it was just a pretty normal game. I did not feel like, ‘Oh my gosh. I am going to get killed by these guys.’ Teams do that to us. You just can’t take it personally,” Cauley-Stein said. “I thought the refs did pretty well, maybe one of the better games we’ve had. They let us play, but also called what needed to be called. If you get pushed, you just nudge back. That’s just the flow of the game.”

    But what about all the talking?

    “You just play through it and let’em talk,” Cauley-Stein said. “You can’t dwell on it or get it back. Just play.”

    He also said the naysayers can scratch off beating Kentucky by being physical and catching UK when it doesn’t shoot well outside.

    “Add it to the list of things people say that is not true,” Cauley-Stein said. “We just overcome. If outside shots are not going in, we have guards that can go inside and score. We don’t rely solely on 3-point shots like some people seem to think. There’s a lot more to this team than that.”
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