Kentucky 69 - 61 Louisville (NCAA Tournament) (New Orleans) (No. 2,089)

All year, whenever we've played Louisville or Florida, I've had this mental image of Rick Pitino and Billy Donovan consulting with each other over strategies to beat UK -- much like how the Soviets told all of their chess experts to work together on efforts to beat Bobby Fischer. This was the fifth game this year where Kentucky has played either Louisville or Florida, and every time I was very nervous that those guys would come up with some new strategy that would do us in.

This time I was especially nervous because it is so difficult to beat Pitino twice in the same season. Three years in a row -- 1993, 1994, and 1995 -- Arkansas had great teams that beat UK in the regular season, and then Pitino beat them in the SEC tournament. In 1996, UMass beat us in the regular season, and Pitino beat them in the tournament. This year, U of L lost to Marquette, Notre Dame, and Cincinnati in the regular season -- and then came back to beat all three in the Big East Tournament. Pitino's just a wizard at that sort of thing; he may be the best coach I've ever seen at coming up with a game plan for one big night.

I don't know enough about the technical aspects of basketball to understand everything Pitino came up with, but I do know that he made one big decision that made this game very different from the others we've played in the NCAA's. Unlike Western Kentucky, Iowa State, Indiana, and Baylor, Louisville had no dreams of outscoring UK in an up-tempo game -- Pitino was not going to sit there and watch Michael Kidd-Gilcrist and Terrence Jones run a layup drill. Instead, Louisville was going to pack in their defense, trust to their enormous center (Gorgui Dieng) to prevent easy shots at the rim, and try to force Kentucky to take jump shots. On offense, U of L (which is the worst-shooting team I've ever seen make the Final Four) would follow the traditional Big East strategy of starting their offense after they missed their initial shot -- everyone would crash the boards and try to score on put-backs and layups while UK was out of position.

On the whole, this struck me as a very good strategy. For one thing, it was well-suited to the site of the game. This was the third straight year that UK has played the Big East Tournament Champion in a big dome in the NCAA Tournament. The dome atmosphere tends to play havoc with UK's three-point shooting -- we went 4-32 in the 2010 loss to West Virginia and 9-27 in the 2011 loss to UConn. That was good news for Louisville, which wouldn't be likely to suffer by packing in its defense. For another thing, the strategy was well-suited to Pitino's team. It requires a team willing to play violent basketball, and to battle ferociously for every rebound. These things Pitino had in spades, as Louisville is one of the hardest-working and most determined teams I've ever seen. Louisville ended up getting 19 offensive rebounds -- to only 6 for the Cats -- and they took twenty more shots than we did.

Pitino also caught two breaks. First, he got an officiating staff that was willing -- nay, eager -- to call charging fouls on MKG. Two quick fouls put him on the bench for most of the first half, and he only played 23 minutes in the game. For most of the night, his inability to drive at the basket negated a major potential offensive weapon for UK. Second, UK kept missing free throws. The Cats went only 11-20 from the line tonight (55 percent), and for awhile it looked as though those misses might cost them dearly.

But it still wasn't enough. How did the Cats win? Let's focus on a few key numbers from the box score:

Kentucky 3PT FG-FGA: 2-7

Both of these numbers are very important. In the first place, you will see that the Cats only took seven three-pointers in the game. Doron Lamb took two, Darius Miller took four, and Kyle Wiltjer took one. That was it. This was not the day for guys like Marquis Teague and MKG to be testing their three-point shooting. Even Jones decided to forego the one three-pointer he shoots in almost every game. Instead of taking the shots Louisville was willing to give them, the Cats kept attacking the basket over and over and over. It wasn't pretty, but it was smart. UK simply couldn't afford to waste a bunch of possessions with missed three-pointers.

But the two three-pointers that UK made were both very important, and are two of my favorite baskets of the year. The first came with 1:16 left in the first half, after U of L had fought back from a 24-14 deficit to make the score 31-28. With the enormous crowd (over 75,000 people were there) baying, and Louisville hoping to catch UK by halftime, the ball suddenly appeared in the hands of Kyle Wiltjer, who calmly nailed a three-pointer to put UK up by six. It was a glorious moment for Wiltjer, who has been getting better and better, and who had 5 big points in only 8 minutes.

The second three-pointer was even better. After going up 45-32 early in the second half, the Cats had lost their entire lead, due almost entirely to allowing too many second-chance points. U of L finally caught the Cats at 49 with 9:12 left. UK went up 55-51 with 6:23 to go, and then there was some agonizing back-and-forth: U of L missed a jump shot. Anthony Davis was called for an absurd charging foul. U of L missed a three-pointer. Jones missed a jump shot. Then U of L's Russ Smith went charging to the basket. He missed a layup, and after the usual scrum Terrence Jones had the rebound with 5:16 left. The Cats zipped up the floor and suddenly Darius Miller was wide open for a three-pointer and I was thinking please, please, please, please go in -- and it did and the Cats had a 7 point lead with five minutes to go and I started to think we might finally win this game.

Steals: Kentucky 7, Louisville 5

How many times have we Kentucky fans seen Pitino's press destroy some poor team? The Cardinals threw everything they had at Kentucky with the press today -- they leaped, they trapped, they scrambled, they did everything they could to disrupt Kentucky. But Teague, a freshman who is particularly hated by U of L fans because they thought he was coming to their school, was pretty much a rock throughout. He played 33 minutes with only two turnovers, and he ruined U of L's chances of scoring a lot of points off of the press. In fact, UK's quick hands on the other end got more steals in our half court defense than U of L generated through its press.

Darius Miller: 4-7 from the field, 4-4 from the line, 13 points, 29 minutes

On Monday night, Miller will set the record for most games ever played by any Kentucky Wildcat -- a pretty funny honor for a team that supposedly consists entirely of one-and-dones. But this is no ceremonial honor; Miller made one huge play after another in this game. With the score 37-32 early in the second half, Miller's jump shot put UK up seven, and then back-to-back steals by Miller led to consecutive baskets and a 43-32 lead. After the huge three-pointer (discussed above) to make the score 58-51, he made two free throws to give the Cats a 60-51 lead. So he effectively sparked two critical second-half runs.

Miller's position is so complicated. On the one hand, he is the only senior and the only Kentuckian among the regulars -- which makes him the institutional memory for the whole squad. And a team this young, even this one, needs senior leadership in the cauldron of the NCAA Tournament. On the other hand, for all of his ability, Miller cannot compare to most of the other guys in terms of raw talent. Few assignments can be tougher than leading guys who are more talented than you, but that's exactly what Miller has done. He is good enough to clearly be a significant contributor, but he is also willing to sublimate his game for the good of the team, and I think it helps that he's such a great guy. In the SEC Tournament, he had two rough games against LSU and Florida, and MKG took himself out of the starting line-up against Vandy because he wanted to make sure Miller got off to a good start. To me, that anecdote shows how much the younger guys like and respect Miller, and it says great things about him and them.

Anthony Davis: 7-8 from the field, 4-6 from the line, 18 points, 14 rebounds, 5 blocks.

I have summarized 39 Kentucky games for the Heath Post, and I'm certain that I have not given Davis enough credit. I tend to get caught up in the particular drama of this or that game, and too often I've simply jammed in a sentence somewhere like "Davis had his usual 15 points and 9 rebounds." Now that Davis's college career is almost over -- he is the overwhelming favorite to be the number one NBA draft pick in a few months -- I've come to realize that his accomplishments are almost too big to describe.

Let me be very clear: I like every player on this team, and I think Coach Cal has done an amazing job. But if Kentucky wins the title, this season will likely be remembered by everyone outside the Commonwealth as the Year Anthony Davis Played in College. He's that good. In fact, he's the best Kentucky player I've ever seen. He has a sixth sense for the ball -- whether he's blocking it, catching it, or dunking it -- that is simply impossible to describe. He plays just as hard on defense as he does on offense. He never showboats, never pouts, never flops, never complains to the officials, never stops working, and never asks to be taken out of the game. He works hard on his free throws. And he only turned 19 a few weeks ago.

In this game, after a week in which message boards and Twitter accounts filled up with rumors about the knee injury he suffered in last week's game against Baylor, he was the difference between the two teams. Years from now, U of L fans will explain away this victory by explaining that they would have won if not for Davis. And I will see their point. He made a whole series of little turnaround shots that sparked UK to an early lead. At two key points in the game, he turned awkward lobs into spectacular dunks. His presence in the paint forced U of L to take more jump shots than they like. His 14 rebounds -- including 12 defensive rebounds -- were vital in cutting off Louisville's second-chance points. And his defense on Dieng (who went 3-10 for only 7 points) ruined U of L's initial efforts to get the ball inside.

Davis doesn't have the immediate star-power of other titans, such as John Wall or DeMarcus Cousins. But he has a quiet greatness, a determination and commitment to winning, that marks a truly spectacular athlete. And his effort and old-school decency are, for this father of teenage boys, just as charming as other forms of charisma. For example, when he was being interviewed by Jim Nantz on national television after the game, he made a point of saying that the team really wanted to win this championship for Kentucky's fans.

This was a week when the UK and U of L fans got a great deal of attention, and for the most part I think we deserve it. It's our passion and our intensity that drive the winning tradition in both Louisville and Lexington. And I really hope that Kentucky wins the championship on Monday night, for me and for all of the other Kentucky fans who have devoted so much of our lives to this happy cause. And I also want them to win for Coach Calipari, who risked a lot by coming to UK, and who has done so much for us already, and who deserves the credit and validation that a championship would mean. And I want them to win for Miller, and Jones, and Lamb, and Wiltjer, and Kidd-Gilchrist, and Teague, who will always be among by all-time UK favorites. But after watching him for 39 games, I really want Anthony Davis to get this title. He deserves it, and he deserves the legendary status of being both a National Champion and the National Player of the Year in his freshman year.

There was a great moment after the game when Calipari and Davis were talking to the CBS guys. One of the panelists mentioned that before a growth spurt in high school, Davis was a 6' 2" point guard. And then he asked Calipari if it was true that Davis wanted a chance to show he could play point guard. Calipari responded that he had told Davis he could play point guard: "I told him to come back next year, and he can play all the point guard he wants." It's a funny story, because we all know that Anthony Davis will be very, very wealthy quite soon, and he'll have responsibilities outside of Lexington. But it's also a poignant story for all of us who will miss seeing Davis at UK. I, for one, would love to see him come back and try his hand at the point.