Kentucky vs. Louisville far from masterpiece

LEXINGTON, Ky. – In the days leading up, the message never changed.

Don’t budge.

Don’t give an inch.

“Don’t let ’em punk you,” John Wall said.

That was John Calipari’s admonition to his team, in practice, in meetings, even when his Kentucky basketball team walked onto the floor of Rupp Arena on Saturday for the opening tip of the most hyped UK-Louisville game in years.

“(Coach) knew they were going to be aggressive,” said Wall, Kentucky’s outrageously gifted freshman guard. “If we let them punk us – they still had a chance to win the game, but they probably would have won it, if we weren’t going to be aggressive.”

Such was the survivor scenario of Kentucky’s highly charged, if poorly played, 71-62 win over archrival Louisville, a game that was more a demonstration of smashmouth basketball than heavenly hoops.

The ugliness some feared might greet Rick Pitino’s first trip to Rupp after his summer revelation of personal transgressions never materialized – there were no signs, no posters, and just a brief “Karen Sypher, Karen Sypher” cheer from the upper deck – but was replaced by the rudeness on the floor.

This was a game high on emotion, low on execution.

It reminded you of so many Super Bowls, with all the great hype, and then, not much good football.

There wasn’t a whole lot of pure basketball here. Louisville missed its first 14 shots. After coming into the game shooting 42.2 percent from 3-point range, Kentucky ended up making just two of 14 from beyond the arc, missed eight of its first 14 free throws, and had 18 turnovers.

There were five technical fouls called, and not one of them on the coaches.

“Rivalry game,” Pitino said.

But there was a downright beautiful stretch of 83 seconds, after Louisville scrapped its way to a 42-41 lead, when Wall came out of the shadows to score six straight points.

Afterward, Pitino said it reminded him of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, the way Wall failed to get frustrated and then succeeded when it counted.

After Terrence Jennings’ free throw put the visitors up 42-41, Wall scored on a drive with 9:31 left. Then he hit a jumper with 8:38 remaining. When he made two free throws at the 8:08 mark, UK was up five. When Perry Stevenson scored off a pretty Eric Bledsoe assist, the home team was up seven, and in control.

“He wasn’t having a good night,” said Pitino, “but the great thing about that young man is it never bothered him, (he) never lost focus, stayed with it and made two killer plays.”

But hadn’t that been Calipari’s message all along? Fight through the frustration. Play through the bumps.

After all, Cal knows Pitino, and vice versa. It wasn’t by accident that in his meeting with the media on Friday, the current UK coach kept mentioning “bumping and grinding,” and “kneeing” and “hipping” and “riding” when talking about the defense used by the former UK coach.

“We went through this thing called a gauntlet, of where you’re getting beat up when you’re driving the ball and getting pulled, because we knew these guys were going to play tough,” Wall said.

“Did you see how the game was played?” Calipari asked. “There were things, grabbing, kicking, grabbing, punching, eyeball-dragging, fish-hooks, nose drags. There was everything in the game.”

Everything but basketball, you could argue.

Except, if you were a Kentucky fan, those sweet 83 seconds. That’s all the basketball the Cats needed.