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Wisconsin ends Kentucky's bid for an undefeated season
INDIANAPOLIS — They stood in stunned silence in the Kentucky student section, some with hands clasped atop their head and others with their tear-stained faces buried in their shirts.
So many times this season the undefeated Wildcats escaped with victories in games just like this one, games they trailed deep into the second half. This time the team that seemed destined never to lose ran out of late-game magic.
Kentucky overcame a nine-point first-half deficit and an eight-point second-half deficit in a classic national semifinal against fellow No. 1 seed Wisconsin, but the Wildcats went cold at the worst possible time. They only scored four points after they built a four-point lead with more than six minutes to go, enabling Wisconsin stars Sam Dekker and Frank Kaminsky to rally the Badgers for a stunning 71-64 victory.
"You have to give Wisconsin credit," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "They did to us what we have done to teams. I'm going to look at the tape. There's some things I probably should have done, a timeout here, I maybe should have changed up something. But we normally execute down the stretch, and we didn't."
While Wisconsin's victory avenged its one-point loss to Kentucky in last year's Final Four and ended the Wildcats' bid for perfection two wins shy of 40-0, neither of those were the Badgers' primary motivation. They want to win a championship after coming so close last year, and they'll have that chance Monday night if they can win a rematch with a Duke team that defeated them in an ACC-Big Ten Challenge game in Madison earlier this season.
Wisconsin's season might have ended in heartbreak again Saturday night were it not for a handful of key plays down the stretch from Dekker that swung the game in favor of the Badgers.
He ended a 16-4 Kentucky second-half run with a jumper with 4:26 to go that pulled the Badgers within two after the game appeared to be on the verge of getting away from them. He gave Wisconsin the lead for good a few possessions later when he buried a step-back top-of-the-key 3-pointer. Then he took a charge on freshman Trey Lyles on Kentucky's next possession, drew a foul on Wisconsin's ensuing possession and sank 1 of 2 free throws to give the Badgers a four-point lead with 1:06 to go.
Aaron Harrison brought Kentucky within one on a 3-point play, but that was the lone basket the Wildcats down the stretch. Kaminsky and Bronson Koenig clinched the victory with seven clutch free throws in the final 24 seconds.
"Whether we're down six or up 20, we're going to be us and we're going to play our game," Dekker said. "I think that's the way you need to go about things in life, especially on the basketball court. We got down today a little bit, but we didn't change our expression, we didn't change what we did, we didn't freak out. We knew if we played our game, we'd get back into it."
It's a testament to Wisconsin's resilience that Kentucky lost because the game resembled so many games the Wildcats had come from behind to win on their way to 38-0.
In SEC play, Kentucky survived overtime games against Texas A&M and Ole Miss and rallied from six down in the final seven minutes at LSU to defeat the Tigers. Notre Dame also pulled ahead of Kentucky in the Elite Eight, but the Wildcats made their final nine shots to survive another week.
Wisconsin was able to trade punches with Kentucky for the entire game because its frontcourt shot well enough from the perimeter to force the Wildcats' big men out of the paint, opening up driving lanes for the Badgers.
No matter which combination of big men Kentucky used to defend Kaminsky, Dekker and Nigel Hayes, the Badgers were able to find a matchup they liked and attack it. Kaminsky finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds, Dekker had 16 points and Hayes had 12.
What Kentucky will lament most is a series of wasted possessions after it built its four-point lead.
The Wildcats repeatedly bled the clock dry, put the ball in the hands of one of the Harrison twins and asked them to create off the dribble against Koenig, but they were not able to score with anywhere near the ease they did during a first half when they combined for 18 points. Three straight Kentucky possessions ended in shot-clock violations during the final five minutes and the twins were unable to get the better of the matchup with Koenig.
Those late-game struggles surely will lead to questions about whether the ball should have been in the hands of Karl-Anthony Towns down the stretch. The potential No. 1 pick in next June's draft had 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting, but he refused to second guess his coach about whether he should have touched the ball more late in the game.
"Coach did a great job," Towns said. "We had an absolute beautiful game plan. We just got beat. I mean, we can't go by a coaching decision. Without Coach Calipari, we don't even get to 38 at all."
Regardless of why it happened, the ending was still a shock for the legions of Kentucky fans who made the trip to Indianapolis. Most filed out of the arena immediately after the final buzzer. A few lingered to watch the Badgers celebrate at mid-court.
On a night when Kentucky expected to move one win closer to the first 40-0 season in men's college basketball history, the Wildcats instead felt the sting of defeat for the first time in 361 days.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
