“It was a real nail-biter
there," said Tubby Smith, "Certainly we knew Miami would
come in ready to play. They’ve got a really scrappy
bunch, a very experienced team and it showed. They were
very physical and we had trouble defending their motion
offense. Joe [Crawford] played big.”
Kentucky scored the
first ten points of the second half behind three buckets
by Randolph Morris and a layup from Stevenson. The Cats
appeared ready to put the game away but the Redhawks
fought back gamely. Chipping away little by little,
Miami was within two at the 9:44 mark after a basket by
Doug Penno.
“Miami did a good job
of getting back and stopping us from pushing the ball,"
said Ramel Bradley, who scored 12 points and dealt five
assists, but also had six turnovers, "That led to a lot
of us standing around on offense. We’re used to pushing
the ball and things flowing easily.”
Stevenson would take
over defensively and Crawford, Bradley and Morris
provided the offense. The Cats pulled away at the end,
finishing with its largest margin of the game.
For the game, Kentucky
allowed Miami to shoot just 33% from the field, but in
the 2nd half the Cats allowed the Redhawks just four
baskets in 25 attempts. Defense clearly won this game
for Kentucky. “I thought the Kentucky defense was
important," Smith said, "Stepping up and holding them to
16 percent in the second half was what we needed to do
because we weren’t scoring very well. We weren’t doing a
great job of getting to the basket and we were in foul
trouble. I was impressed with the way our guys raised
their level of defensive intensity because they [Miami]
were beating us on the boards in the second half.”
Next up for Kentucky is
Mississippi Valley State, a team that was crushed by #25
ranked Creighton on Monday. They also lost to Ole Miss
on Nov 10 by a score of 72-49.