It was the question asked of UNLV 24 years ago: What would happen to an unbeaten team when a late-stage NCAA tournament game entered the final few minutes in a neutral or negative scoreboard situation?
That question greeted the 2015 Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday night in Cleveland.
A 37-0 record would have become 37-1 — and one of the emptiest impressive achievements in college basketball history — if Big Blue could not rally in the final six minutes against the inspired Irish of Notre Dame.
When Notre Dame’s Steve Vasturia hit a three-pointer to give Notre Dame a 59-53 lead with 6:16 to go, the questions surrounding Notre Dame — Would the Irish’s legs hold up? Would Notre Dame keep its poise? Would Mike Brey’s team continue to make plays? — gave way to questions about Kentucky. Would these players tighten up? Would they get scared? Would they overthink the situation or just continue to play with their eyes on the prize?
Kentucky wasn’t flawless down the stretch, mind you. Andrew Harrison stepped out of bounds on a poorly-chosen drive with 1:59 left. Trey Lyles remained shaky at both ends of the floor. Dakari Johnson’s defense continued to be suspect. However, that’s nitpicking in the grander scheme of things.
The Wildcats truly did withstand the overwhelming pressure of the occasion, doing what UNLV failed to do in 1991 against Duke in the Final Four national semifinals.
The Wildcats didn’t miss a field goal attempt or a foul shot in the final six minutes. They usually produced patient possessions with excellent spacing, giving their best player, Karl-Anthony Towns (he is the best pro prospect on this team), the freedom to get easy four-foot hooks. He missed some in the first half, but at crunch time, Towns did not leave any points on the court. Kentucky did receive a 2014 March memory in the form of an Aaron Harrison 28-footer — that was an improbable (albeit familiar) make — but for the most part, the Wildcats came up with excellent possessions when they needed them.
On defense, the Wildcats wobbled, as mentioned above, but they shut out Notre Dame in the final 2:30 of this game, keeping the Irish out of the paint and turning them into a jump-shooting team. Yes, Jerian Grant came down with “hero-ball disease” after splashing a 28-footer of his own at 2:36, so in that sense, Notre Dame helped Kentucky out. Yet, the Wildcats didn’t commit cheap fouls, and they didn’t get beaten on the glass, as they had been earlier. Kentucky responded to pressure, and when Grant’s final heave missed at the horn, Big Blue and its Nation had lived to make another Final Four with history still very much alive.
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The conventional wisdom heading into this game held that Notre Dame had to spread the floor, draw Kentucky’s bigs away from the basket, and use ball movement and screening actions to free up three-point shooters, especially in the corners. The fascinating twist in this game — one that held up until the final few minutes — is that Notre Dame’s screens and ball movement produced driving lanes to the rim, enabling the Irish to beat Kentucky by attacking the basket, not by wearing out the three-point arc.
Kentucky’s abundance of big bodies and player-by-player length made the notion of focusing on paint points a dubious one in the eyes of many hoopheads. Yet, Notre Dame spaced the floor in ways that got Kentucky’s bigs far away from the basket that they couldn’t help in time. The Irish got one-on-one matchups with driving angles that gave Notre Dame ballhandlers a half-step advantage with momentum going toward the tin. Often, the Irish finished these drives. When they didn’t, they were able to get two or three Kentucky defenders to contest the shot, leaving the weakside open for an offensive rebound and an instant putback basket.
Notre Dame was fearless in temperament, but the point to underscore about the Irish is that they were fearless in their game plan as well. Kentucky’s credentials and tournament pedigree were and are obvious, and don’t need embellishment — not when the simplest facts speak for themselves and tell the story of how great the Wildcats have become. We did receive the ultimate answer about Big Blue’s ability to handle the heat of crunch time — that has been established as the story of the evening — but before this contest began, America was wondering if Notre Dame could make this Midwest Regional final a true fight.
It was the Irish’s combination of scheme, execution and belief — forged from the fires of past March disappointments, enhanced by a team’s desire to honor the memory of Mike Brey’s mother — which made this game a true college basketball classic. The punch-counterpunch nature of this game in general, but especially the playmaking spectacular that was the second half, lent this game a level of explosiveness which matched the drama of the moment and the total effort seen from every player on both sides.
Kentucky-Notre Dame was played well. It was played ferociously. It was played desperately in the face of massive pressure.
Good sporting events give you one of those three qualities. Really good sporting events give you two. Great sporting events give you all three.
Final Four-bound and still-unbeaten Kentucky, take a bow for winning.
Beaten-only-in-the-scoreboard-sense Notre Dame, many props to you for giving college basketball another year with another classic regional final.
There are many problems with college basketball, problems that shouldn’t be swept under the rug just because of one game that transcended a nation’s hopes and expectations. Yet, when a sport does receive a big, bountiful gift of a moment that creates such magnificent and theatrical quality, there is nothing left to do but stand and applaud… and to marvel at how 2015 Kentucky did what 1991 UNLV couldn’t.
