Kenny Payne saw firsthand what this Kentucky team is capable of. ‘They’re a machine.’
As tipoff of the latest Kentucky-Louisville basketball battle neared Thursday night, the fans began trickling into the building.
There was a blue shirt here. A blue shirt there. Soon enough, there were blue shirts everywhere. This wasn’t Rupp Arena, but there were moments over the next two hours when it didn’t seem too far off. The KFC Yum Center — the home of Cardinals basketball — was red and blue for this edition of the rivalry. An odd scene at an odd time for U of L’s storied program and its embattled coach. Just how strange was it to have a crowd like that on a team’s home court?
“It was definitely a first for me,” said UK forward Tre Mitchell, a fifth-year college player in his first season with the Wildcats. “I haven’t been in a position like this. I think it goes back to the fan base — on both sides. You looked around, you saw blue and red everywhere. I don’t think it was more one color than another. I think it was pretty evenly split down the middle. At times, you were out there and you couldn’t hear anything — on both sides of the floor.
“That just goes to the Kentuckians … Is that what it is? Kentuckians?”
Laughter erupted at that. Mitchell has lived in the state for only six months, after all. The 23-year-old smiled and finished his thought.
“That just shows their love for the game,” he said.
On this night, there was a lot to love if you were wearing blue in those Yum Center stands.
The guy sitting next to Mitchell at the postgame podium — Antonio Reeves, another 23-year-old in his fifth season of college basketball — provided many of the smiles for UK fans who got in.
Reeves scored 30 points — and put on a shooting clinic in the first half — to lead No. 9-ranked Kentucky to a 95-76 victory over Louisville, the latest lopsided win for the Wildcats in this series and another disheartening loss for Kenny Payne, the longtime UK assistant who returned to lead his alma mater just last year but might have coached his final game in the rivalry Thursday night.
The cheers went back and forth in the opening minutes. And then the Cats busted loose, with Reeves leading the way.
The 6-foot-6 guard missed the first shot that was taken in this game. He didn’t miss again until the second half. And he had plenty of opportunities. Kentucky didn’t make a shot from the field until Reeves hit a 3-pointer nearly four minutes into it. That made the score 5-all. And that got Kentucky’s leading scorer going. The only thing that stopped him was the halftime buzzer.
By the time that horn sounded, he was 9-for-10 from the field and had made all four of his 3-pointers. He scored 22 points in the first half alone. And his final shot sent UK into the visiting locker room with a 53-33 lead over its biggest rival.
What was it like to watch such a scoring flurry?
“Honestly, I was starting to get a little cold over there. He was just flurryin’. He wasn’t missin’,” Mitchell said with a grin. “He works harder than anybody I know. And when you put the work in, eventually it’s gonna show. I think we did a great job finding him, and it’s up to him to knock the shot down.”
That was no problem on this night. When Reeves caught a pass from Reed Sheppard as the final seconds of the first half ticked down, there wasn’t much question of what was coming next. He let loose with another shot from behind the 3-point line. It went in, of course.
“I already knew I was hot,” he said of that one. “So when I got the ball, I wasn’t even thinking.”
It was effectively a dagger, the end of a 14-2 run to finish off the half and pretty much end the Cards’ night. Louisville never got any closer than 17 points to the Cats after halftime.
When Payne took his turn at the podium, he questioned Kentucky’s No. 9 ranking in the latest AP Top 25 poll.
“They got ’em ranked 9, but they’re a lot better than 9,” he said. “And the reason they’re a lot better than 9 is they share the ball, they defend, they have players that can really shoot the ball, really pass the ball. Probably the best passing team that we’ve played.
“They’re a machine. They keep coming at you and at you and at you.”
And that’s been the M.O. of this Kentucky team. For so many opponents, these Cats just have too many weapons. And that was the case against a Louisville team that dropped to 5-7 on the season with ACC play looming and Payne’s future with the program in serious jeopardy.
Mitchell had 18 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks. Justin Edwards tallied 13 points and seven rebounds, perhaps his best college game yet. Rob Dillingham scored 12 points, delivering the final insult with a breakaway, windmill jam with about 90 seconds left. Sheppard had 11 points but also 11 assists, the new record in a rivalry that is now 56 games old.
“It’s a lot of scoring threats out there with us,” Reeves said. “Everybody can dribble, pass, shoot — like Coach is always talking about. So we just continue to look for one another and find one another — whoever’s open, whoever’s got the hot hand, give it to him.”
It was Reeves on this night. But it could be just about anybody on this team.
Adou Thiero had seven points, four rebounds and one ridiculous block, posting a plus-22 rating in just 13 minutes off the bench. The really scary part for future opponents? Two of Kentucky’s best players — D.J. Wagner and Aaron Bradshaw — didn’t do much at all. The freshman duo, who were high school teammates in Camden, New Jersey, and major Louisville recruiting targets before picking the Cats instead, scored two points each. Bradshaw ended up with four fouls. Wagner picked up two quick ones in the first half and never got into the flow of the game.
With this team, that’s OK, as John Calipari said afterward.
“The greatest thing with this group, ‘You don’t have to play great for us to win. We got enough guys. If you have a bad game, just step back and let other guys play more.’ Which tells you, there’s no pressure. … Just go play loose and play.”
Calipari also offered up an impassioned defense of Payne, his assistant at Kentucky for 10 seasons, four Final Fours and one national championship. The former Cardinals star went 4-28 in his first season as the program’s head coach, the goodwill that surrounded his arrival fading quickly. The anger around his tenure as Louisville’s coach is turning to apathy, as evidenced by the amount of blue in the crowd Thursday night and the number of empty red seats that have looked over the Cardinals in previous games.
“My guess is he’ll have this program — within a year — where everybody wants it,” Calipari said. “It’s just, the growing pains are miserable. …
“I feel for him. He’s going to be fine.”
Whether Payne is the head coach at Louisville a year from now seems a long shot at this stage.
But his former team is cooking. He saw firsthand what these Cats are capable of Thursday night. “They got a bunch of guys,” Payne noted of the number of ways they can beat you.
Mitchell noted the same. He sat next to Reeves at this postgame podium. Next time, who knows which Wildcats will be doing the talking.
“It could be anybody’s night — any given night,” Mitchell said. “You don’t know who it’s gonna be. It just so happened to be that it was us.”
Next game
Illinois State at No. 9 Kentucky
When: 7 p.m. Dec. 29
TV: SEC Network
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Illinois State 7-4, Kentucky 9-2
Series: Kentucky leads 1-0
Last meeting: Kentucky won 75-63 on Nov. 30, 2015, in Lexington
This story was originally published December 21, 2023 at 11:09 PM.
