UK doesn’t show any quit in loss to Duke: ‘We’re never going to back down’
Never mind the final season of Mike Krzyzewski’s iconic career. Forget about the celebrated site that is Madison Square Garden.
After Kentucky lost 79-71 to Duke on Tuesday night, the coaches followed a tried and true custom of punctuating a game with a midcourt conversation.
What UK Coach John Calipari said Krzyzewski told him captured the inescapable essence of a Kentucky-Duke game.
“He said to me afterward, this was like a postseason game,” Calipari said.
Kentucky and Duke did not duplicate the stunning blowout that opened the teams’ 2018-19 seasons. Nor did this game have a historic clutch shot like Christian Laettner made to eliminate UK in the 1992 NCAA Tournament.
Yet a Kentucky-Duke game automatically commands attention and rehash. This one was big on move-counter move to the end.
Duke’s poor three-point shooting and Kentucky’s zealous offensive rebounding kept it close.
Even a 22-5 second-half run by Duke failed to remove the chess match quality.
Kentucky answered with an 11-0 run to set up a dramatic finish in a setting (Madison Square Garden) known for athletics memories.
“It says a lot,” Jacob Toppin said of UK’s resiliency. “We’re never going to back down from a fight. … When it says zero-zero on the clock, that’s when we’ll stop fighting.”
As if a reprise of last season’s struggles in the final minutes, Kentucky was outplayed down the stretch and lost 79-71.
The outcome had a historic footnote.
Duke defeated Kentucky in an opening game of a season for the fourth time. The Blue Devils also did it in 2018-19 (118-84), 1988-89 (80-55) and 1979-80 (82-76 in overtime).
The only school to start Kentucky’s season off with a loss that many times is Georgetown College: 1903, 1904, 1905 and 1922.
Duke also improved its record in opening games with Mike Krzyzewski as coach to 40-2.
Transfers Sahvir Wheeler and Oscar Tshiebwe starred for UK. Each had a double-double. Wheeler had 16 points and 10 assists. Tshiebwe had 17 points and 19 rebounds.
Even though Duke made only one of 13 three-point shots, it wasn’t enough for the Cats.
Afterward, Calipari attributed Wheeler’s five second-half turnovers to fatigue. The UK coach said he played Wheeler 38-plus minutes in part because TyTy Washington struggled (3-of-14 shooting).
Meanwhile, Duke saw significance in the victory.
“We felt we had a chance to make a statement with this game,” Duke’s star freshman, Paolo Banchero, said.
When asked what statement Duke made, he said, “We’re a great team. We’re going to play together and we’re going to play hard all 40 minutes. We’re going to play like Duke.”
Kentucky never led in the first half and trailed for 17 minutes and 32 seconds.
But Duke led only 39-35 at halftime.
Two factors seemed to weigh heavy. Duke made only one of nine three-point shots. And Kentucky grabbed 12 offensive rebounds.
Kentucky was in catch-up mode almost immediately. UK missed its first five shots and had made only eight of its first 25.
Duke twice led by as much as seven points late in the first half.
A pair of late threes by Kellan Grady kept Kentucky close.
A three-pointer by Keion Brooks from the top of the key gave Kentucky its first lead: 42-41 with 18:33 to go in the game.
The lead lasted 29 seconds and was part of basketball’s version of Pingpong: eight lead changes in less than three minutes.
The back-and-forth ended with Kentucky trailing 51-48.
Duke sandwiched two transition baskets around an air-balled three-point shot by Washington. That prompted a Kentucky timeout with 15:27 left.
Barely a minute later, Tshiebwe picked up his third foul.
This came in a three-plus minute span when Duke outscored Kentucky 14-2 to take its largest lead: 61-50.
Freshman Trevor Keels contributed back-to-back blows. He hit a jumper from the top of the key. Then when UK double-teamed him on the next possession, Keels found a teammate for a dunk that put Duke ahead 59-50. That prompted a Kentucky timeout with 13:04 left.
Banchero capped what became a 22-5 Duke run with back-to-back baskets over Brooks. Those shots gave Duke its largest lead — 69-54 — with 9:21 left.
Just when it seemed Kentucky was fated to lose, the Cats went on an 11-0 run keyed by Tshiebwe’s relentless energy and despite off nights by freshmen Washington, Daimion Collins and Bryce Hopkins.
Seemingly inevitably, Kentucky trailed only 69-65 with more than six minutes left. It was Kentucky-Duke time.
“For us to be in that game when our better players did not play well and their really good players played really well, and we had a chance to win?” Calipari said. “That’s crazy.
“But I loved our fight. I loved our competitive spirit. And that’s what our program has always been about.”
Next game
Robert Morris at No. 10 Kentucky
What: The Kentucky Classic
When: 7 p.m. Friday
TV: SEC Network
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 2:00 AM.
