The dawn of a new era in the Kentucky vs. Louisville series began with a bang Saturday night as No. 5 Kentucky held off a feisty Louisville team inside Rupp Arena to score a 93-85 win, giving first-year Wildcats coach Mark Pope the first blow over first-year Cardinals coach Pat Kelsey in one of college basketball’s best rivalries. Kentucky led for the majority of the game and kept the Cards at arm’s length after a late push from its cross-state foe as Lamont Butler’s career-high 33 points paced the Wildcats to victory.
The Cardinals cut the lead to two possessions several times down the stretch and served as a pain in the backside to UK’s efforts to close it out. But close it out Kentucky did, as Otega Oweh and Butler combined for 12 of the team’s final 14 points in the final two minutes just as Louisville was making its last-ditch efforts at a comeback.
Oweh finished the game with 17 points — 11 of which came in the second frame of action. On the other side, Chucky Hepburn scored 26 points for the shorthanded Cardinals and Noah Waterman tallied a game-high 12 rebounds.
None of the players to log a minute in the game from either team were part of the Louisville or Kentucky programs last season and neither coach was with the program last season, but the tense nature of the historic rivalry transcended familiarity. Louisville freshman Khani Rooths flipped a UK fan the bird as he made his way to the locker room at halftime, and the two teams got into a dust-up in the second half after a battle for a loose ball in front of the Louisville bench quickly escalated.
Both Pope and Kelsey stepped in to separate their players before things got ugly. Officials reviewed the play and only a common foul on Kentucky’s Brandon Garrison was ultimately assessed.
“It wouldn’t have been an appropriate game if there wasn’t, you know, a tension-filled mosh pit down in front of [Louisville’s] bench,” Pope said postgame. “That was probably the most fun part of the game. You have two organizations with an insane amount of passion about winning and feel all the joy and intensity and stress of this rivalry.”
Kentucky with the win improved to 10-1 on the season and built on its NCAA-leading offense, which is scoring more than 91 points per game on average. It marks the best start for UK since the 2016-17 season. It also sets up the Wildcats with a wave of momentum heading into Saturday’s CBS Sports Classic vs. Ohio State at Madison Square Garden.
Here are three takeaways from the Battle of the Bluegrass:
Sign of the times
Both coaches were participating in the rivalry for the first time and all players from both sides were playing in it for the first time in a sign of just how much upheaval there is in college basketball in this era of transfers. One would think that may detract from the theatrics of big series such as Louisville-Kentucky, but that was far from the truth in this one. There was a lot of physicality, a little more trash talking and a near melee to boot in what turned out to be a shootout. Fun game between two fun teams who took the rivalry serious. Great for the sport!
Butler goes bonkers
Butler took 10 shots from the field and made 10 shots from the field in the win. Yes: the man quite literally could not miss. That included a perfect 6-of-6 mark from 3-point range. The only shots he missed in his 32 minutes of action came at the free-throw line, where he finished 7-of-12.
No way, Oweh
Eleven of Oweh’s 17 points, both of his steals and two of his three assists came in the second half.
That’s clutch.
What was more clutch was the timing of that production in the second half. It looked like this in the final seven minutes with the game in the balance:
- 6:51: Assist on Lamont Butler 3-pointer
- 2:01: Steal and slam to give Kentucky critical cushion late
- 1:10: Made 3-pointer off Lamont Butler assist to move UK lead back to 10
- 0:43: Makes layup and draws foul; makes free throw off and-one
- 0:15: Made free throw
- 0:09: Steal to effectively ice game+
