The scene in Kentucky’s huddle before OT with Louisville: ‘We’re winning this game.’
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Game day: Kentucky beats Louisville in OT
Click here to read all of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s coverage from Saturday’s 78-70 University of Kentucky men’s basketball overtime victory over Louisville in Rupp Arena.
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The game tied at 61 and just a few seconds on the clock, Kentucky’s Tyrese Maxey — who had already scored 25 points with regulation ticking away — took Louisville’s Fresh Kimble off the dribble, to the baseline, and fired up a runner that would’ve lived on in rivalry eternity had it gone in.
It didn’t go in.
As Maxey toppled over the row of UK cheerleaders sitting courtside, he kept his eyes on the basketball, just like everyone else in a raucous-turned-restless Rupp Arena.
Fellow freshman Keion Brooks was streaking in — unabated — from the perimeter. He got his right hand on the ball with 2 seconds on the clock and tipped it back toward the basket, seemingly setting the scene for what would’ve been an even more memorable moment.
The ball clanged around the rim and appeared to be on its way down. Maxey threw up his arms in the signal of a made basket. The ball, somehow, fell out of the cylinder and into the hands of a Louisville player as the clock expired. Maxey put his hands on his head in disbelief. He surely wasn’t alone.
This edition of the rivalry was going into overtime. The Cats, an inch away from a thrilling victory, had five more minutes to play. And the odds were not necessarily in their favor.
Nate Sestina had fouled out. Nick Richards and EJ Montgomery had four fouls each. Even John Calipari was sitting on a technical in a tense, tightly called game.
Kentucky would go on to win the game in overtime, 78-70, scoring the final eight points and getting big plays on both sides of the court from a variety of players.
Before that, they had to move on. They had to walk into that huddle, between the end of regulation and the beginning of the extra period, and turn the page.
What was Calipari’s message to his team at that moment?
“He said, ‘We’re absolutely fine. Everybody relax.’ That was exactly what he said,” said Immanuel Quickley, who ultimately grabbed a crucial rebound that led to the free throws to make it a two-possession game with 17 seconds left.
“Well, here’s what I say when I’m coaching,” Calipari said afterward about that huddle. “I always, my mindset is, ‘We’re winning this game.’ That’s how I coach. Until the game’s over — ‘Oh, we lost, now let me go watch the tape and figure that out.’ But my mindset is always, ‘We’re going to win this game.’ I may not be saying it to them but that’s what my mind is and that’s where I need them.
“Hey, the tip-in didn’t go, fine. ‘Let’s keep playing … let’s go, you can get these guys.’ … I’m never thinking, we may lose this game. ‘Oh, my gosh, if we’ — No. We’re going to win this game. Now, how are we going to win it? … I mean, they’re young so you just got to keep on it.”
Quickley said his (relative) experience came in handy in this one. These Cats are young, yes, but not terribly young by the standards of Calipari’s teams. Among their key players are a graduate transfer in Sestina, a junior in Richards, and three sophomores in Quickley, Montgomery and Ashton Hagans.
It’s a group still (relatively) lacking in major, big-game experience, however — something on the scale of an NCAA Tournament game or a win-at-all-costs rivalry game like this one. Quickley and Hagans were the only players in that group who played double-digit minutes in UK’s most recent overtime game — the Elite Eight loss to Auburn nine months ago.
Quickley brought that experience to this pre-overtime huddle.
“I was trying to calm everybody down, too,” Quickley said. “Because I had been in that type of game, you know. Auburn, last (season), even though we lost — being able to have experience definitely helps because you can share with the other guys.”
Louisville’s Dwayne Sutton scored an and-one on the opening possession of the extra period, and Jordan Nwora made a three-pointer a bit later to give the Cards another three-point lead, but U of L never had a bigger advantage than that in overtime.
Kentucky’s players kept their composure, Richards came up big while playing with four fouls, and the Cats pulled away in the end.
“You know, our heads were down for a little bit — just like two seconds,” Richards said of those moments after the missed tip-in. “And then everybody just started picking each other up. And just started to realize, ‘We got five more minutes. We can do this. Just leave it all out there on the line.’ And that’s what we did.”
This story was originally published December 28, 2019 at 8:54 PM.
