How did we beat MSU again??? UK wins their 26 SEC Tournament Championship! Cats beats the Dawgs 75-74. UK improves to 32-2. Calipari receives his sixth conference tournament championship. This win keeps MSU on the bubble.
For those who remember, we were pretty much out of it against MSU in our last matchup and we found a way to take it into overtime…well it happened again! Johnson hits a three to go up five with about 2 minutes to go. Patterson with 1:23 to go gets a rebound off of Dodson’s missed three and brings it down to three. Varnado gets fouled, misses both shots. Cousins misses the shot, MSU ball with 43 seconds left in regulation…not looking good. We foul but it isn’t 1-1 yet. MSU inbounds it and Wall steals it, down 1 with 30 seconds left. We foul; Bost is shooting 1-1. He misses it! We are down 1 with 25 seconds to go. Wall comes down and misses the mid range shot, MSU rebounds with 8.2 seconds left. Stewart is fouled and goes to the line for 1-1.
We now find ourselves down three and MSU does what is considered to be the smart thing, foul us to take away the three. Statistics say this is the right call, and it was. The only mistake was if they knew they were going to foul, why have someone with foul trouble in the game? As soon as you foul, you can put guys with foul trouble back in. MSU had Stewart in and he fouled Bledsoe, which fouled him out. Stewart is one of their best shooters and not someone you would want out of the game if you can help it.
Bledsoe goes to the line with 4.9 seconds left and he hits the first, which was big in itself…Bledsoe was shooting 71% but has struggled at the line under pressure situations in the past.
Then he does well to miss the second and it gives just the right bounce. It tips off Patterson and Wall gets it outside the three area. Wall shoots up a three with 2.8 seconds left and he misses but Cousins gets the rebound and it just leaves his fingers to go in, to take it into overtime. An overtime with a team without Stewart, Augustus with 4 and they do not go very deep. I was begging for an ot in the last three minutes of regulation and we got it.
If MSU misses the tourney because of a shot with .1 seconds left, that is heartbreak. I hope they get in and push Florida out.
Cousins did not start in OT after getting a bloody nose from what I believe occurred during the celebration. He asked to come out at the end of regulation and Cal later said he forgot he was over there because Orton was doing well.
Bost and Varnado looked worn out in OT and that is the difference in depth.
IN OT we took the first lead with 2:30 to go, 68-67, after a goal tend was called, even without the goal tend Dodson was there to put it back up.
Bledsoe hit a big shot with 1:21 to go, to go up 69-67. Then Varnado misses, we bring it back up and run clock. Then with 29 seconds left, 3 seconds on the shot clock Wall throws up a forced ugly three and some how he got it to go up 74-69.
MSU comes down and scores. They foul Cousins with 5.3 seconds left. I have no idea why we couldn’t get it into a guard to shoot the free throws. He misses the first and Harris goes over and gives him some encouragement. He just needs to hit the second to ice it. It looked like he missed it but it falls in after hitting the side of the rim. MSU comes down and hits a three but it is too late, CATS WIN!
All I can say is it just has a feeling of “our year.” I’m not saying we will win the title, you never know what will happen but we have gotten so many breaks this year in situations…it has been a dream season.
Bledsoe scored 18 pts, Wall-17, Patterson-15, Cousins with another double double- 10 points and 10 rebounds, Orton with a good game with 6 points (3-3 from the field), Liggins-4, Dodson-3, and Stevenson scored 2 off of a monster transition dunk.
Ravern Johnson led all scorers with 20 points. He did not play against UK in our last matchup because of one game suspension. Vanardo with 18 points and five block shots. Stewart with a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
We knew MSU would shoot a lot of threes and they did, going 10-27 (37%). UK not as hot as yesterday going 4-16 (25%).
UK was outrebounded 38-34, with a team fighting for their tournament lives that makes sense.
Selection Show is tonight at 6 eastern. It would be a shock for us to not be the #1 seed in the East. I was told today that we will likely play the winner of the play in game. The play in game is given to the #64/#65 teams and they usually play the #1-#1 seed. This year if Kansas is in the Midwest, this logistically doesn’t work. Not sure on the details on why, I would assume it has to do with when the play in game is and when the first Midwest game would be. So this is why it would go to UK and not Kansas. Kansas would still get the worst 2 seed (#8 team) and we would get the second worst (#7 team).
Cal’s thoughts: Eric when down 5 said Coach we got this. Cal was impressed with our players confidence level.
Cal had enough confidence in Cousins hitting at least one and was fine with him getting the inbounds close to the end. We didn’t set it up for him to get it, but he was open and that is much better then turning the ball over.
Cal was hoping at the end of regulation Bledsoe could get up a three while they fouled us.
We had no business winning this game and Cal hopes this impressive game by MSU is enough to get them in.
A good trait for an inexperienced team is they don’t know they can’t do anything. They have the confidence they can go through any door. Cal mentioned as some players get older they lose some of that confidence. He is hoping our biggest weakness of inexperience is an advantage in some ways. Way to put a spin on that one…:-)
Wall named SEC Conference Tournament MVP. Bledsoe and Cousins were also on the 1st team along with Wall.
Go Cats! Beat Southwest Eastern Carolina St. Tech or whoever we will end up playing next...
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