Cats win! Cats win! Cats win! How sweet it is! University of Kentucky Wildcats has done it! #8! #8! Kentucky wins it 67-59! I’m running out of exclamation marks! No men’s basketball team has ever won the national championship with 38 wins until now as the Cats finish 38-2.
UK was dominate early and then put the game into cruise control. Led by as many as 18, Kansas went on a run at the end but never came back like Louisville did to tie it up and UK finished them off.
Lamb had a great offensive game scoring 22 points, 7-12 from the field, 3-6 from three and 5-6 from the line.
Other scorers: Teague-14, Kidd-Gilchrist-11, Jones-9, Davis-6 (16 rebounds, 6 blocks, 5 assist, and 3 steals), and Miller-5.
Kansas had three key guys doing all the scoring: Taylor-19, Robinson-18, and Johnson-13.
UK won the rebound battle 39-34. Dominated the blocks 11 to 5.
UK shot very well in the 1st half, slipped some in the second half ending 23-56 (41.1%). 6-14 (42.9%) from three. 15-21 from the line (71.4%).
Kansas shot 22-62 (35.5%). 5-11 (45.5%) from three. 10-15 (66.7%) from the line.
Not bad on turnovers both ways, UK with 11, Kansas with 9.
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Coach Cal after the game:
My players are cutting nets down and I’m proud of them.
We got a bunch of guys that share the ball, they are so unselfish. They will do whatever they need to win.
This game reminded me of the Baylor game more than the Louisville game. Just dominated out of the gate. Then put it on auto pilot in the 2nd half. Drives us a little crazy how we sat back and allowed Kansas to come back in the 2nd half but the argument from Cal is it makes it very difficult for Kansas to come back when you work the clock like that.
Luckily UK hit a few clutch shots in the milking of clock including Teague’s three, Davis with the pull up, and players being bailed out from a foul. Then a few times being able to get the rebound to reset the shot clock.
If you asked Kansas what they want UK to do, they would say shoot it quickly to not make the clock hurting their chance of a comeback. It is tough for our guys to play their game and play well and milk the clock but as a fan it is tough to watch that but Cal continues to show he knows what he is doing.
Our fans are nuts. Cal stated the crowd was 70/30 pro UK. The student section was about 5 times bigger than KU’s.
UK now only 3 titles behind UCLA, 3 more than UNC, two times more than Duke with their 4.
This has been a great season. Cherish the moment. Kentucky will likely be good again next season but I expect Davis, Jones, Lamb, Teague and MKG all to go pro. Even if UK lands Shabazz, Noel, and Bennett I don’t see how in the world UK can be as special as this team was. We will still be good but crazy young again and Noel can’t replace Davis…who can? I hope no one is expecting that from Noel because he isn’t likely to fill those shoes. So appreciate this moment. It is a great/wonderful day to be a Wildcat!
If you are staying up late and celebrating be safe and don’t set any fires!
Go Cats!
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