Kentucky fights, but doesn’t finish in loss to Utah
Substituting for John Calipari for much of the Kentucky coach’s radio show Monday night, associate coach Kenny Payne heard a caller ask about Saturday’s game against Ohio State.
Payne chuckled as he said the caller — and by inference UK — could not afford to forget about playing Utah on Wednesday.
“Anybody can beat us,” Payne told the radio audience, “and we can beat anybody.”
Utah, which hadn’t beaten a top-10 team on a neutral court since beating then-No. 7 Duke in Madison Square Garden on Dec. 19, 2015, beat Kentucky 69-66 in T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday night.
The Utes (9-2) led for more than 37 minutes, but had to stand up to a furious Kentucky rally down the stretch to win.
Ashton Hagans’ steal and driving layup tied the score at 66 with 1:44 left. That marked the first time Kentucky had not trailed since the 18:03 mark of the first half.
UK had trailed by as much as 17 with barely with 12 minutes left.
Timmy Allen, who led Utah with 25 points, put the Utes ahead on a floater with 37.1 seconds left.
The frantic finish took a strange turn. Tyrese Maxey appeared headed to the foul line with 22.7 seconds to go after a blocking call. But a review by the referees changed the call to charging.
Rylan Jones, a 92.3-percent free throw shooter, made it a three-point lead by making one of two foul shots.
Kentucky got two chances to tie it. But Maxey missed an open three from the right wing. Then Immanuel Quickley missed from the corner at the buzzer. That capped a 2-for-17 shooting night for Kentucky from three-point range.
UK, which entered the game ranked No. 6, fell to 8-2. Maxey led UK with 18 points. Hagans added 16.
Calipari made sure to include Utah in the tests to come. “These are two of the better teams we’ve played,” he said of UK’s two opponents in Las Vegas. Next up is No. 5 Ohio State on Saturday.
Utah came into the game with an all-time record of 66-144 against teams ranked in The Associated Press’s top 25.
As Kentucky saw the next three games — against Utah, Ohio State and Louisville — as defining So, too, did Utah.
“I think the stakes at the poker table have just gone up a little bit,” Coach Larry Krystkowiak said.
In the first half, Kentucky led for only eight seconds. Although it trailed 35-31 at halftime (the first deficit going into the second half since the loss to Evansville), UK could have gone to the locker room in an upbeat mood.
Kentucky scored the half’s final eight points to rally from a 35-23 deficit — UK’s largest in the half — in the final 2:15.
Montgomery led the charge. After going scoreless against Georgia Tech four days earlier, he came alive — belatedly some UK fans probably said. He contributed three baskets in UK’s 8-0 run to end the first half. That included a post-up basket in the final seconds to set the halftime score. Montgomery finished his night with eight points and 10 rebounds.
The game’s first basket gave Kentucky its only first-half lead.
Both Gach, who scored 22 points against Kentucky last season, countered with a drive and score. He scored Utah’s first 10 points, which put the Utes ahead 10-4 at the first television timeout.
Gach had shown an ability to play well in big games. Besides the game at UK last season, he had five steals against UCLA last season. “He’s a gamer,” Krystkowiak said.
Allen, Utah’s leading scorer, took it from there. He scored 15 points in the final 14:38 of the half. That included two free throws which gave the Utes their first double-digit lead (19-9). His shot in the lane with 2:36 left gave Utah its largest first-half lead at 35-23.
The first half saw the return of Nate Sestina, who had missed the last three games after breaking his wrist in a practice fall. The rust from playing for the first time since Nov. 24 showed. He went scoreless and grabbed one rebound in nine minutes Wednesday.
Kentucky closed within 40-36 early in the second half. Kahlil Whitney’s first three-pointer since Nov. 22 — and UK’s first of the game after seven misses — got the Cats within four.
But Jones answered 17 seconds later with a corner three.
That began a 10-0 Utah run that put Kentucky behind 50-36, the Utes’ largest lead. UK called timeout with 14:56 left.
Kentucky went almost six full minutes without scoring a basket — and had only one Maxey free throw in that span. Utah outscored UK 14-1 in that time to take its largest lead yet: 54-37.
Thereafter, Kentucky showed the kind of fight Calipari had called for repeatedly. Suddenly, Utah scored only two baskets over the next seven minutes.
Five different UK players scored in a sequence that saw the deficit reduced to 59-53 with 5:47 left.
That left the other half of Calipari’s pleading — the finish left to be decided.
Next game
No. 6 Kentucky vs. No. 5 Ohio State
What: CBS Sports Classic
When: 5:15 p.m. EST Saturday
Where: T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
TV: CBS-27
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 1:45 AM.
