“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.