In a new era of the Kentucky-Louisville basketball rivalry, Lamont Butler was legendary

Before the first six games of this Kentucky basketball season, the scene in an almost-empty Rupp Arena was the same.

Nearly two hours before tipoff — before the doors opened and the fans trickled in — one Wildcat would stroll through the tunnel, walk onto the court, and go through his pregame routine.

Every time, Lamont Butler grabbed a ball and started putting up shots, already loose by the time his UK teammates started to join him, one by one, out on the floor.

For those six games, you could set the Rupp countdown clock by the moment Butler set foot on the playing surface. On Wednesday night — game seven on the home schedule — the routine changed.

Butler, who had missed Kentucky’s 90-89 overtime victory over Gonzaga four nights earlier in Seattle with an injured ankle, didn’t come out until later. And he didn’t put up any shots. The Wildcats wouldn’t have their starting point guard against Colgate. Things got a little weird that night, but the heavily favored Cats wouldn’t need him to get the victory.

On Saturday, that might not be the case. And so — almost as soon as UK defeated Colgate — Big Blue Nation started wondering, and the wait began.

Would Butler — now clear to everyone, the leader of this Kentucky basketball team — be ready to go against the archrival Louisville Cardinals?

On Friday, Mark Pope couldn’t say for sure. And the wait continued.

On Saturday afternoon, the Rupp doors opened, UK students poured in, took their seats and turned their attention toward the court. No Butler. The time of his usual arrival passed. No Butler. A couple of other Cats came out onto the floor to go through their own routine. Still, no Butler.

Then, the student section started buzzing, and a few moments later, there he was.

Butler walked through the tunnel, a little later than usual, wearing his full warmups — no more brace on that right ankle — grabbed a ball and got to work.

“People were talking about whether he’s going to play or not,” Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey said after it was all over. “I was like, ‘That cat’s playing in this game. You can mark that one down.’”

On this night, Butler became a legend in the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry, turning in one of the greatest performances — perhaps the greatest — in the history of the series.

Eleven days after he injured his ankle in UK’s lone loss of the season so far, Butler was “magnificent” — Kelsey’s word for it — in the Wildcats’ 93-85 victory over the Cardinals.

Playing in just his ninth game in a Kentucky uniform, Butler scored 33 points. He took 10 shots from the field. He made them all. He attempted six 3-pointers. He missed none. He dished out six assists, and — despite that ankle injury — he was on the court for 32 minutes, more than any other Kentucky player.

Butler played a major role in UK’s hot start — putting Louisville in a 14-5 hole and forcing Kelsey to call a timeout less than three minutes after tipoff — and every time those pesky Cardinals made a game of it in the second half, it was Butler who provided the rebuttal.

Kelsey was already familiar with Kentucky’s point guard. He was the head coach at Charleston two seasons ago, when his team met San Diego State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and almost sprang the upset.

Butler was with the Aztecs back then.

“I still see that kid in my nightmares,” Kelsey said.

San Diego State won that day. Two weeks later, Butler hit a buzzer-beater to send the Aztecs to the national championship game.

Before Saturday’s game, Kelsey said Butler was dapping everybody up on the Louisville sideline, and the coach wondered if the 22-year-old point guard would remember him. So he asked.

“Oh yeah,” Butler responded. “I remember you.”

Kelsey’s anecdote implied that Butler was smiling as he said it. Outside of game time, he usually is. When the ball is in play, something else takes over.

“He is a stone-cold killer,” Kelsey said. “And a really, really good player.”

On Saturday night, he was both.

Butler assisted on two of Kentucky’s first three baskets — the second dime coming on an Otega Oweh poster dunk in transition that set the tone for the energy the Wildcats would bring to the rivalry game.

“Whenever Lamont is out there, I’m confident,” Oweh said. “I’m confident in any game, just because I know he’s gonna give it his all. I’m just glad he’s back. I love playing with him.”

Every other Kentucky starter had scored before Butler took his first shot of the game, the 3-pointer that gave the Cats a 14-5 lead and prompted Kelsey to burn his first timeout.

Butler scored UK’s next points — another make from long range — and assisted on an Andrew Carr dunk that gave the Cats a 19-9 lead a little more than five minutes into the game.

The Rupp Arena crowd, of course, was going nuts by this point.

“It was amazing,” Butler said of the rivalry atmosphere. “It was everything that I expected. You know, the fans showed out. They gave a lot of energy throughout the game. It was fun.”

It wasn’t much fun for the Cardinals, but they kept up the fight.

Kentucky went up 12 points in the first half, but Louisville closed the gap to four as the clock ticked inside the final minute. Butler got the last basket before halftime, driving around U of L’s Chucky Hepburn — one of the best defenders in college basketball — and beating the buzzer with a layup to send the Cats to the locker room with a 46-40 lead.

If the Cards thought Butler was a nuisance by that point, they needed only wait.

Louisville scored on its first possession of the second half. Butler answered with a 3-pointer.

Louisville scored on its second possession of the second half. Butler answered with a 3-pointer.

After an empty trip for each team, Hepburn hit a layup to narrow the Cats’ lead to 52-47.

A minute later? You guessed it. Butler buried another 3-pointer.

When that one went down — making him 5-for-5 from deep on the day — Butler stood in that spot at the top of the key for a moment, turned to look at Pope and simply shook his head.

Pope pointed back in his direction.

“Lamont Butler just gave us one of the all-time greatest performances in the history of this super special game. Like, all time,” Pope said. “The numbers back it up. The way he came into it backs it up. … I’m so proud of him.”

Kelsey used phrases like “freight train” and “bowling ball” to describe Butler’s ability to attack the basket and said trying to stop him from doing that was his team’s top priority from a defensive standpoint.

“We obviously knew that he was a good open, feet-set 3-point shooter,” Kelsey explained. “But obviously we didn’t adjust fast enough, because, man, he got looks today. Ball got in the air and it was like, touched by God — that thing was going in.”

After that fifth make, Butler had one more 3-pointer left in his arsenal.

Louisville narrowed UK’s lead to 74-67 with a little more than seven minutes left. Koby Brea missed a 3, but Brandon Garrison got the offensive rebound. The Cats struggled to get a second-chance shot up, and Oweh passed the ball to Butler with one second left on the shot clock.

“And the ball lands in Lamont’s hands. And I just turned around, and I just stared at my staff,” Kelsey said. “And I just looked. I go, ‘No way the sixth one’s going in.’ Bang! The crowd goes nuts. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ So give him credit. Tip the cap. He made big shots tonight, and he was the difference in the game.”

Pope also gave “major credit” to senior athletic trainer Brandon Wells and head strength coach Randy Towner for getting Butler in a spot to even play in Saturday’s game. Pope said he didn’t hold him out of the Colgate game to get ready for this one. And Butler said he didn’t know for sure that he would be able to play against the Cardinals until the day before.

That relative delay in getting out to the court before the game? Butler said he needed extra treatment on his ankle back in the locker room, making him a little late, by his standards, for warmups. Maybe this should be his normal routine.

The 33 points — in his 140th college game — were 10 more than Butler’s previous career high. Only two other UK players — Rodney Dent (12-for-12 against Morehead State) and Kenny Walker (11-for-11 against Western Kentucky) — have been perfect while taking more than 10 shots from the field. Only one Wildcat has attempted more 3-pointers without a miss, with Wenyen Gabriel going 7-for-7 from deep against Alabama in the 2018 SEC Tournament.

Butler’s point total was one shy of the scoring record in the Kentucky-Louisville series. UK’s Derrick Miller scored 34 points in 1988, but the Wildcats lost by 22 points in that game.

Rex Chapman dropped 26 on the Cards in Freedom Hall to lead his team to an 85-51 win in 1986, still the largest margin of victory in the rivalry game.

Samaki Walker hit Kentucky with a triple-double, leading U of L to an 88-86 win over Rick Pitino’s Wildcats in 1995. That was Pope’s first game against the Cardinals as a player. He said that he thought back on that experience Friday night — the eve of his UK-Louisville coaching debut — and broke into a “teary-eyed sweat” as he recalled that bus ride back to Lexington, the Wildcats no doubt drawing Pitino’s ire all the way home.

This time around, Pope left the arena on the right end of the score. Kelsey had another reason to lose sleep at night. And Lamont put his name alongside Rex and Samaki and the other legends of one of the most celebrated rivalries in all of college sports.

As someone repeated Pope’s statement that Butler had just turned in one of the “all-time greatest performances” in the history of this game, the player himself just shook his head.

“Man, that’s crazy to say,” Butler replied, humility in his tone. “I definitely grew up watching Kentucky, so to have myself be part of something special — between the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry — is definitely a blessing. I don’t know. I just was out there playing, trying to win the game for my teammates and for BBN. And it was just a product of that.”

With Kentucky’s victory over Louisville, Mark Pope erases three decades of torment

UK basketball won an action-packed rivalry game vs. Louisville. Mark Pope unpacks it all.

Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s victory against rival Louisville

Five things you need to know from No. 5 Kentucky’s 93-85 win over Louisville

Louisville basketball gave UK all it had in narrow defeat. Pat Kelsey discusses the game.

Lamont Butler’s career night leads UK past Louisville in new era of basketball rivalry

Box score from No. 5 Kentucky basketball’s 93-85 win against Louisville