From a statistical perspective, the story of this game is pretty straightforward. Ken Pomeroy's analysis said that UK would likely win by 12 (76-64), and the Cats actually won by 16 (87-71) -- so he was pretty close. UK scored more points than expected because they shot really well (10-20) from three-point range. Iowa State did better than expected on two-point shots (22-39, or 56.4 percent), and they got a lot of free throws (they went 18-25 from the line), but they made only 3-22 (14.3 percent) from behind the arc. The numbers showed that if UK made its threes, and the Cyclones missed theirs, the Cats would probably end up with a double-digit victory -- and that's exactly what happened.
But numbers don't come out of nowhere. No one is sitting in a living room rolling dice and making this stuff happen. Very young men had to go into a cauldron of noise in Louisville and play this game, and they don't know how it's going to come out. While the numbers for this game may seem boring, actually watching the game was really dramatic.
I thought both coaches entered the game with sound strategies. Coach Calipari, who seems determined to make sure that UK isn't beaten by a lot of three-pointers, decided to concentrate on defending the three -- even if this gave Iowa State's excellent point-forward, Royce White, more room to work on the inside. By contrast, Iowa State's Fred Hoiberg decided to pack everything inside, to give Marquis Teague all the jump shots he wanted, and to defend the rim.
Both of these strategies made sense to me, but in the first half Calipari's worked better. UK kept doing a tortoise and hare thing with the Cyclones -- they were up 11-4, then it was 13-11, then they were up 23-11, then it was 26-22, then UK pulled away to lead 38-27 at the half. At this point I was a little concerned at how UK kept letting Iowa State come back, but I thought we were in very good shape. The Cats were not forcing anything on offense, but were wisely taking what the Cyclones gave them. And Iowa State was really cold from the outside, which is always a good sign.
Meanwhile, however, Coach Hoiberg -- who lost an NCAA Tournament game to UK in 1992 as a player and doesn't seem to have gotten over the fact -- and his Cyclones were determined to change the game. You can see what they were thinking. In Royce White they have a tremendous player -- a huge guy who can run the offense like a point guard, but who can also attack the rim. For the second half, Hoiberg decided to unleash White and challenge the Cats to a much more up-tempo game. No more sitting back and hoping for the best from the outside. Let's take it to them -- let's dunk on them a few times -- let's get in their face and put the pressure on them -- and then we'll see if all those hoity-toity McDonald's All-Americans really care about winning this game as much as they care about their future NBA contracts.
So, apparently, went the reasoning of Iowa State. Because White took the rebound from the first missed shot of the second half, dribbled the length of the court, and finished things off with a thunderous dunk.
To his credit, Calipari saw what was coming. He called an immediate timeout -- only 28 seconds into the second half -- and tried to stop Iowa State's run. But the Cats still underestimated their opponents. A minute later, White stole the ball from Davis, dribbled the length of the floor, and dunked again to make the score 38-34. Calpari tried another timeout -- his second in less than two minutes -- and Lamb responded with a three-pointer to make the score 41-34. But White came back with a three-point play the old fashioned way, and you could see him yelling that he was the best player on the floor. A few minutes later, UK's lead was gone, and the game was tied at 42.
Now Iowa State is a land-grant college for engineers, farmers, and such, and the usual mentality of such colleges -- from Auburn to Virginia Tech to Texas A & M -- is that of the scrappy underdog. They always want to use their passion and intensity to overcome their lack of resources. But what Fred Hoiberg may not know about Kentucky is that in our Commonwealth, there is no distinction between the liberal arts school and the land-grant school. In Kentucky, all of us -- lawyer and engineer, farmer and businessman -- root for the same team. In Rupp Arena, you can see the upper-class side of the fan base -- the movers and shakers from Lexington, the old families who have had season tickets for decades, the rich kids who went to private schools. But this game was in Louisville, and these tickets had been snatched up by the sort of people who can't get into Rupp -- the hard-core, rabid fans who are normally stuck at home yelling at their TV's. They had come to scream their heads off, and that's what they did.
But none of that yelling would have done much good unless UK had the right type of players. Time after time, the Cats had allowed Iowa State back into the game, and the Cyclones had good reason to suspect that the Cats would not match their intensity. Here, however, they were wrong. It is true that this year's UK team contains a very nice, well-mannered group of kids. (I could only imagine what would have happened to Royce White if he started yelling at DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall). That's one of the reasons they've been so coachable. And the Cats do have an enormous level of confidence that sometimes causes them to coast during games. But when you get their attention, they can be ferocious.
Iowa State had their attention now, and the results were spectacular. Jones broke the 42-all tie with a dunk of his own, and Mr. White started finding it much more difficult to get to the rim. The next few minutes featured some of the most intense action we've seen all year -- the referees almost lost control of the situation, and ended up calling a silly technical on Hoiberg, and an even sillier make-up technical on Jones. Every rebound was contested, every defender threw himself into his play, and you could feel the intensity through the TV. Meanwhile, the crowd went absolutely berserk -- it was probably the loudest crowd I've ever heard at an NCAA tournament game. Almost all of the UK fans were on their feet, you could hear the crowd give a huge "WALK" call whenever any Cyclone player appeared to stumble, and every made UK basket set off enormous, explosive cheers. (My favorite crowd moment was when Iowa State would go to the line, and you could see dozens of UK fans on the other side of the gym -- far behind the shooter -- waving their arms as if to distract him.)
But even intensity doesn't work unless someone can score, and now Darius Miller -- the senior from Maysville on a team that supposedly consists entirely of one-and-dones -- came to the fore. Playing his very last game in the Commonwealth that has loved him and worried about him for years, Miller was tremendous. He made a long jumper with almost no time left on the shot clock to put UK up 46-42. A few minutes later, he made a three-pointer to put the Cats up 53-44. Now Hoiberg was calling time-outs, trying to stop UK's run. But soon Miller hit another three to make the score 60-44 -- and then he made two free throws to give UK a 62-44 lead. In six minutes of game time, the Cats had outscored Iowa State 20-2, and Miller had scored 10 of those points.
The game was effectively decided at that point, although the Cyclones never stopped battling. When it was all over, Miller and Teague had ruined Iowa State's strategy of conceding their shots. Teague went 10-14 from the field and finished with 24 points, 7 assists, and only 2 turnovers. It was his best game of the year, and it was great to see how happy he looked on the floor. Miller went 7-11 from the field, 3-6 from behind the arc, and finished with 19 points and 6 rebounds. Davis had his usual 15 points and 12 rebounds, Jones had 8 points and 11 rebounds, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist had 2 points (he only took four shots) but 7 rebounds. It should also be noted that during the 20-2 run that decided the game, UK's front line repeatedly frustrated and harried the Cyclones into missing shots that they desperately needed.
So the Cats run their record to 34-2, and they move onto Atlanta for a Sweet 16 match-up against the Indiana Hoosiers. My guess is that there will be quite a bit of interest in that game.
My main man, Darius Miller.
ReplyDelete