Five things you need to know from UK’s shocking 85-79 NCAA tourney loss to Saint Peter’s
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Men’s NCAA Tournament: Saint Peter’s stuns Kentucky
Click below to view more content from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com on the Kentucky’s men’s basketball team’s loss to 15th-seeded Saint Peter’s on Thursday night in the NCAA East Regional at Indianapolis.
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Five things you need to know from the No. 2 seed Kentucky Wildcats’ 85-79 overtime loss to the No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s Peacocks in an NCAA Tournament East Region men’s basketball game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis:
1. Cats make wrong kind of history. UK’s shocking loss to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s is the biggest NCAA Tournament upset, by seeding, a Wildcats team has ever suffered.
The NCAA began seeding its men’s basketball tournament in 1979. Until Thursday night, UK’s 1982 NCAA tourney loss, as a No. 6 seed, to No. 11 Middle Tennessee State, had been the biggest Big Dance upset in UK history.
Coming into the 2022 NCAA Tournament, No. 15 seeds were 9-135 vs. No. 2 seeds all-time.
The loss to Saint Peter’s is only the second time a Kentucky team has lost its opening game in an NCAA Tournament in the past 27 such games.
As UK head man, John Calipari is now 31-9 in the NCAA Tournament. From 2010 through 2015, Kentucky went 22-4 in the NCAA tourney.
Since 2016, the Cats are 9-5.
A season ago, Kentucky went 9-16 and missed the NCAA Tournament. This year, the Cats were eliminated from the Big Dance by a No. 15 seed.
For the first time in his UK tenure, Calipari is going to hear the wolves howling.
2. Another NCAA tourney free-throw nightmare. If Kentucky fans weren’t haunted enough by the role errant foul shooting has played in so many Calipari-era UK tournament losses, the Saint Peter’s loss was another foul shot disaster.
Kentucky got to the foul line six times in overtime. The Cats made one foul shot.
On UK’s first possession of OT, Wildcats star Oscar Tshiebwe was fouled. With the score still deadlocked at the 71-all tie that had ended regulation, Tshiebwe missed both free throws.
After Kentucky scored the first four points of the OT to go up 75-71, point guard Sahvir Wheeler — an 81.5-percent foul shooter entering the game — got to the line.
He missed both, badly.
Once Saint Peter’s had tied the game at 75 on a Doug Edert three-pointer, UK super-senior Davion Mintz was fouled on a drive. The veteran guard — a 71.9-percent foul shooter this season — made one of two.
The missed foul shots opened the door for Saint Peter’s — and the Pelicans stormed through.
3. Perimeter defense kills the Cats again. Down the stretch of the season, opposing guards gashed Kentucky.
Alabama’s Keon Ellis hit the Cats with 28 points. LSU’s Xavier Pinson had 26. J.D. Notae of Arkansas went for 30, Mississippi’s Matthew Murrell 25. In the SEC Tournament, Vanderbilt’s Jordan Wright had 27, while Tennessee’s three-headed backcourt of Kennedy Chandler (19), Zakai Zeigler (11) and Santiago Vescovi (9) combined for 39 in a low-scoring game.
On Thursday night, it was the Saint Peter’s guards who feasted on the UK defense.
Daryl Banks III lit the Cats up early, scoring 16 points in the first half and draining four-of-four three-pointers.
In the second half, Doug Edert took over, hitting clutch bucket after clutch bucket.
Banks finished with 27 points, Edert with 20.
4. Saint Peter’s deserved to win. In the shock and consternation over Kentucky’s upset(ting) loss, don’t lose sight of how well Saint Peter’s played nor how good a game Peacocks’ head man Shaheen Holloway coached.
From the opening tip, Saint Peter’s played without fear. Following the playbook that developed for going against Kentucky in the second half of the season, the Peacocks unleashed a physical defense that involved jostling UK cutters on every trip through the lane.
Offensively, Saint Peter’s kept beating Kentucky with backdoor cuts and was able to get shots for its best offensive players.
Late in the game, Holloway had his team switch into what appeared to be a 3-2 matchup zone.
With the pressure of being the victim of a shocking NCAA tourney upset mounting on Kentucky, the Wildcats appeared discombobulated by the Peacocks’ defensive switch.
5. Oscar watch. In a losing effort, Kentucky star big man Oscar Tshiebwe turned in one more stellar individual effort in what was an epic season.
Tshiebwe finished with 30 points and 16 rebounds. He made 11 of 16 shots on a night when UK’s other four starters combined to go 9-of-34.
A transfer from West Virginia, Tshiebwe finished the season with a streak of 16 straight games with a double-double. He set a UK single-season record with 28 double-doubles.
With 515 rebounds in 2021-22, Tshiebwe finished the year 14 rebounds short of passing Cliff Hagan (528 in 1951-52) for second place on the UK single-season rebounding list and 53 short of passing Bill Spivey (567 in 1950-51) for first place.
After the final buzzer sounded and Saint Peter’s players danced in celebration, Tshiebwe doubled over, his face in his hands, and appeared to be sobbing.
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 10:09 PM.
