Kentucky beat Louisville by a huge margin. Here are the highlights, MVP, or Twitter responses.
Who else wanted a drink at five o’clock? Fans of the Kentucky Wildcats were probably scared when the game got off to a slow start, but Antonio Reeves’s amazing performance helped the Wildcats beat their “rival” Louisville Cardinals 95–76.
With 22 points upon 9/10 shooting to the first 20 minutes, Reeves made sure the game was pretty much over at break. He scored 30 points by making 10/16 shots (4/5 from deep).
Reed Sheppard had a career-high 11 assists, and Tre Mitchell scored 18 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for his first double-double as a Wildcat. Mitchell scored 18 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.
The No. 9 Wildcats now have a 9-2 record, and they beat Louisville 4–2 in their last five games. It’s possible that Cardinals head coach Kenny Payne will hear bad news after that loss.
There have been rumors that Louisville may look for a new head coach since they have more time between Thursday night’s game and the start of league play.
Even though nothing has been made public yet, a loss to John Calipari or Kentucky could mean the end of Payne’s short time as coach at Louisville.
The Wildcats looked like they were ready to play by the way they moved. But all three units had a bad start, and Louisville got ahead 7-0.
Kentucky got a short field on their next drive thanks to Deone Walker. They tied the game 7-7 when freshman Khamari Anderson jumped over a defender as well as Dane Key made one of his finest catches of the year.
At halftime, Louisville was ahead 10–7. But it would have been easy for the game to be tied. Louisville made the extra point when they were close to the goal, while Kentucky was sacked and pushed out of the game.
It was the Cardinals’ turn to start the following half. They controlled the drive and scored, giving them a 17–7 lead. Kentucky had chances to stop the play, but they let a third-and-long go through, which led to the score on fourth and goal.
Just when Kentucky needed to score, Barion Brown returned the kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and celebrated with a big L’s down. This made it 17–14 and put the Cats back in the game.
After that, both teams scored again, making the score 24-21. The Cats had a great chance to take the lead right away in the fourth quarter after collecting a Louisville fumble. They had the ball at the Louisville 48-yard line.
Still, they had to make do for a field goal in order to tie the game 24–24 with a little over ten minutes left.
The next time Louisville had the ball, they lost it again, giving Kentucky the ball on the 25-yard line. Devin Leary then hit Ray Davis for a 20-yard touchdown, giving Kentucky the lead.
After stopping the next drive on fourth down, Kentucky’s defense made a tough interception that put the Cards at the UK 38. With just over two minutes left, they punched it in to tie the game.
Lucky for Kentucky, Leary made up for it by taking them down the field. Davis scored a touchdown from 37 yards out to put Kentucky back ahead 38–31 with one minute left.
Then, with seconds left, Jordan Lovett picked off a Jack Plummer pass to the UK end zone. Leary then took a knee to end the game and give Kentucky a 38–31 win that would define their season.
That was a game for the ages, and Mark Stoops or his Kentucky Wildcats had a great win. It was their highest-ranked win in the College Football Playoff rankings while he was in Lexington.
Just three days after stopping the Jayhawks to 20% shooting in a 72–40 loss, the Wildcats (4-0) played their best scoring game in a while to beat the tough Terriers (1-2). Kentucky made 34 out of 59 shots, or 58%, including 17 out of 29 shots after halfway.
To keep things close for more than a half, BU guard Cedric Hankerson made five of his team’s nine 3-pointers.
He scored 24 points. Kingdom had to work a little harder to put things away for the second time in three games. Coach John Calipari was expecting a letdown after the team’s big win over Kansas.