‘Cats Win Cancun Challenge In OT Thriller

By Michael King • on November 26, 2009

John Wall scores 2 of his 23 against Stanford.

CANCUN, MEXICO—The Kentucky Wildcats battled back in a thriller against the Stanford Cardinal to complete their sweep of the Cancun Challenge. Nobody said it would be easy, but isn’t it a little too early to be this nervous watching a game?

John Wall paced the ‘Cats with 23 points including 2 free throws with 2.4 seconds left in the game. Kentucky was trailing by two and things were looking bleak when Wall grabbed a missed free throw and raced down the court. He drew the blocking foul from Stanford’s Andrew Zimmerman and went to the line with a chance to tie. If he was the least bit nervous it didn’t show as he calmly sank both shots.

Coach Cal thwarted Johnny Dawkins’ attempt at another “Duke type” miracle by putting Daniel Orton on the inbounds pass. The ensuing pass almost hit the chandelier and two Kentucky players deflected it into the waiting arms of John Wall. After setting a new record for holding my breath the game went to overtime.

The game teetered back and forth until an NBA 3-pointer from Eric Bledsoe with 33 seconds to go gave Kentucky a 69-65 lead. Wall completed the win with a thunderous breakaway dunk at the buzzer. The capacity crowd of 1425 at the Moon Palace went crazy and the ‘Cats were Cancun Challenge Champs of 2009 by a score of 73-65.

This was a very gutsy performance by our young ‘Cats. Patrick Patterson was in early foul trouble and missed 14 minutes of the first half. Stanford played a very tough zone defense, stopping penetration, and denying the entry pass. John Wall was almost all the offense in the first half with15 points. Without Patterson’s inside presence Kentucky didn’t score in the final 5 minutes. Kentucky trailed at the half 38-32.

Stanford ran a very patient offense with lots of movement and back screens. Landry Fields gave Kentucky defenders fits, driving to the basket and drawing fouls on his way to a 23 point 13 rebound game. From the outside Jeremy Green was lighting it up. All he did was go 5-8 from the 3-point line for 18 points.

DeMarcus Cousins had another strong inside game. He had 13 points and 5 rebounds. He continues to struggle from the foul line 3-8 which hurt down the stretch. He picked up his fifth foul attempting to rebound his intentional miss of a free throw. This needless to say drew the full ire of Coach Calipari.

Patrick Patterson despite foul trouble picked up another double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Darius Miller hit some clutch 3’s and finished the game with 13 points. Eric Bledsoe chipped in 5 none bigger than the 25 foot 3-pointer in overtime.

Off the bench, it was Ramon Harris knocking in 7 huge points and tracking down 7 rebounds. Enough can’t be said about the game Ramon played. He played tremendous defense on the two big scorers of Stanford. His senior experience showed as he found the middle of the zone when Kentucky’s offense appeared stagnant. He scrapped for loose balls and came up with some game changing rebounds. I think it is safe to say without the play of Ramon Harris we lose this game.

Hats off to this Stanford team and Johnny Dawkins. They had a great game plan, executed it well, and controlled much of the tempo of the game. They boxed out and rebounded very well, only trailing Kentucky in rebounds 39-34. They may be picked to finish near the bottom of their conference, but I think they are going to surprise some teams.

In the end it was too much Kentucky and John Wall. I predicted a Kentucky win 75-63, so I didn’t miss it by much. Of course I wasn’t expecting overtime to get to that score.

The 6-0 ‘Cats return to the states to play UNC Asheville in Louisville 11/30 at 7 p.m. ET.

For more UK coverage check out http://kybasketball.blogspot.com/

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