SYRACUSE, N.Y. — When it was all said and done, when Kentucky had secured a Saturday date with West Virginia in the East Regional final, one thing stood out.
The "dumb kids" sure play smart defense.
All week this NCAA East Region semifinal had been portrayed as the "smart kids" from Cornell against the "dumb kids" from Kentucky, as UK's DeMarcus Cousins put it. The knock-down shooters for the Big Red against the wildly athletic cruisers for the Big Blue. Kentucky played street ball. Cornell played smart ball.
Turned out, this late-night Thursday matchup turned into a grind-it-out, defensive-oriented game, with the Cats claiming a 62-45 win over the Cinderella team from nearby Ithaca.
Success in that style should bode well for Saturday, when Kentucky meets a Bob Huggins-coached West Virginia team that loves nothing more than hand-to-hand combat, this time at 7 p.m. for a trip to the Final Four.
But if Cornell, the nation's leading three-point shooting team, was portrayed as playing brainy basketball, Kentucky was portrayed as the outrageously talented Cats. Most times, that means offense. Lots of scoring. Lots of dunks. Lots of highlights.
Instead, Kentucky showed its chops on the defensive end. Its size and length got to the Ivy League champs. After a confident 10-2 start, Cornell struggled the remainder of the first half, scoring just six more points. By halftime, Kentucky led 32-16.
Cornell turned it over twice in the first half in its win over Wisconsin last weekend. The Big Red turned it over 12 times in the first half against the Cats.
"I thought we worked really hard at making it hard for them," said UK Coach John Calipari afterward.
The Cats lost a bit of their offensive focus the second 20 minutes, but for the most part the D was still there. Cornell had made 58 percent of its shots in its first two NCAA games. It made a chilly 33.3 against the Cats. Cornell led the nation in three-point accuracy at 43.1 percent. It was a mere 5-for-21 for 23.8 percent from beyond the arc against the Cats.
It takes discipline to play that kind of defense. It takes effort, and precision, and yes, smarts. It takes the kind of stuff that doesn't show up on ESPN's Top 10.
"You've got to be a disciplined team to stay the whole shot clock," Calipari said.
"When they were coming off screens and handoffs, we tried to pressure them over," said Darius Miller. "We tried not to give them open looks. We tried to guard the three, and make them take tough twos."
The twos were tough. Ivy League Player of the Year Ryan Wittman scored 24 points in the Big Red's win over Wisconsin on Saturday. During one stretch Thursday night, Wittman went 26 minutes without a point. He ended up making just three of 10 shots, his college career now at an end.
"Sometimes you just have games like that where they don't go down," Wittman said. "(But) I don't think Wisconsin had quite the length on the perimeter that they have."
The smart kids don't look as smart when the ball doesn't go in the hole.
"That was just all talk," said Cousins after scoring 16 points and grabbing seven rebounds.
In the end, the NBA kids beat the MBA kids. Now Saturday they meet the West Virginia kids. Not kids, men. Calipari and Huggins know each other from their C-USA days. It'll be as much wrestling match as reunion. Hillbilly Heaven in upstate New York.
Defense is West Virginia's calling card. Huggins' teams rarely put up big offensive numbers, but they always make it extremely difficult for the opponent to score. That's the way Kentucky played Thursday night.
Turns out, that's smart basketball.
