Rushed Reactions: #1 Wisconsin 71, #1 Kentucky 64

Posted by Naveen Reddy on April 4th, 2015

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Three Key Takeaways.

Down the stretch, Frank Kaminsky and Wisconsin played like they were going to win. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Down the stretch, Frank Kaminsky and Wisconsin played like they were going to win. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

  1. 24 years later. It is hard to put games in a historical perspective in the moment, but this will rank up there with almost any of the great games in college basketball history. It is hard to believe, but we were in almost the same situation 24 years ago in the same city. Now this Kentucky team was not the defending champs (runner-up last year) and they were not the juggernaut that 1991 UNLV was, but we are here in Indianapolis with a #1 undefeated team losing to a team that it had beaten in the Final Four the year before. While most people were pointing towards Duke-Kentucky on Monday night as the place where Kentucky’s undefeated season might end, anybody who paid attention all season was aware of how big of a hurdle this would be. Much like the 1991 UNLV-Duke game this had some questionable calls, but this time the team on the wrong end of those calls ended up winning. It isn’t often that games like this live up to their hype (more on that later), but this one did and then some.
  2. Wisconsin showed its toughness tonight. Wisconsin played out of its mind tonight scoring 1.23 points per possession tonight against the best defense of the KenPom era in a performance that made us think that their second half performance against Arizona was not that much of an aberration, but it took more than that. When Josh Gasser found himself on the end of two bad calls–first a charbage call that negated a Bronson Koenig three with eight minutes left followed by a non-call after Trey Lyles slapped him in the face–we thought it might be a turning point where Kentucky would take control of the game. For a few minutes it appeared that they would as they took a 4-point lead before Sam Dekker made a couple of big plays–a lay-up followed by picking up a charge–that swung the momentum back in Wisconsin’s favor. When you have teams that are this evenly matched, you need to make big plays down the stretch. While Kentucky has found a way to win all season long, they misfired when it mattered down the stretch coming up with three straight airballs and shot clock violations. The result was history.
  3. What Kentucky did was incredible. It will be hard for Kentucky’s coaches, players, and fans to think about right now, but this was a great season for the Wildcats. What they did under the direction of Calipari was sacrifice their individual goals and glory for the greater good of their team. Their loss tonight is not a reflection of a failure on their part, but just the reality of the game and life–sometimes things don’t work out even when you plan things out perfectly. Kentucky was the best team in college basketball this season, but in one-game scenarios anything can happen. They were simply outplayed tonight. In all likelihood, we won’t see this group play together again since so many of them are projected to be first round picks, but we won’t forget them any time soon. You can argue about how “great” they actually were, but when they were firing on all cylinders they certainly were overwhelming. In the era of one-and-dones, this type of team (loaded with talent and with at least a little bit of experience) is probably the best we are going to get.

The dream season came to a sudden and aburpt end for Big Blue Nation. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

The dream season came to a sudden and abrupt end for Big Blue Nation. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Star of the GameFrank Kaminsky, Wisconsin. We could have easily went with Sam Dekker, who made a bunch of huge momentum-swinging plays, but we’re giving it to the birthday boy (20 points and 11 rebounds). Not only did he score at will against Kentucky’s vaunted frontline, but he also held his own defensively even if Karl-Anthony Towns got his numbers in the end.

Quotable. “They did to us what we normally do to other teams” – John Calipari. This was the type of game that Kentucky has found a way to win for a little over a year, but this time Wisconsin made the plays down the stretch.

Sights & Sounds. This photo below pretty much says it all.

How about that?

How about that?

What’s Next? Well, we didn’t get the game we were expecting, but this is certainly a nice consolation prize. It is a rematch of the game that Duke won 80-70 in Wisconsin, but a lot has changed since then. As we mentioned in our post after Duke’s win, there are match-ups all over the court. We will have more on this over the next two days.

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