NASHVILLE — Kentucky’s most visible — she says most serious — basketball fan says she wasn’t the least bit worried that Alabama led the entire first half and kept things dangerously close Thursday when the Wildcats put away Alabama in the second round of the Southeastern Conference Basketball Tournament at Bridgestone Arena.
“I wasn’t sweating one bit,” says Ashley Judd, Kentucky alum, Harvard grad school student and Golden Globe nominated actress after the Wildcats pulled away in the second half to eliminate Alabama, 73-67. “It was just a matter of when John Wall was going to take the game over.”
Wall and Eric Bledsoe, Kentucky’s dynamic freshman backcourt, took the game over early in the second half when they scored nine straight points (five by Wall, four by Bledsoe) to change the whole tone of a game that Alabama was controlling. Wall gave Kentucky (30-2) it’s first lead since it was 8-7 with 15:26 left in the first half when he blew past a couple of Alabama (17-15) defenders for a transition layup, drew the foul and hit the free throw that made it 43-42 with 13:51 left in the game.
On Alabama’s ensuing possession, Darnell Dodson came up with a steal on the wing and flipped it out in front of Bledsoe, who ran down the pass and converted a layup to stretch the lead out to 45-42.
Although Alabama hung in there the rest of the way and refused to be blown out by the taller, stronger and faster Wildcats, this game was essentially over. When Bledsoe and Wall weren’t beating the Crimson Tide with their quickness, Patrick Patterson (6-9, 250) and DeMarcus Cousins (6-11, 270) were making life difficult in the paint. Alabama got chances in the paint but Kentucky’s size made it way too difficult to finish.
“We knew it would be very difficult in terms of being able to keep them away from the rim for 40 minutes tonight but we tried to make it as tough as we could,” Alabama coach Anthony Grant said. “Obviously, we weren’t as successful as we needed to be.”
Alabama actually hammered Kentucky on the boards — Tony Mitchell (12 rebounds), JaMychal Green (11) and Justin Knox (11) led a 45-33 rebounding advantage — but the problem was finishing. While Mitchell had some impressive plays around the rim, Green (5-13) and Knox (2-9) were clearly bothered by Kentucky’s inside presence. Kentucky coach John Calipari was pleased with the defense on the inside but he was clearly bothered by Alabama’s success on the boards.
“The last five games we’ve gotten out-rebounded,” Calipari said. “I”m trying to convince this young team of 19-year-olds that either you want it more than they do or they want it more than you do and whoever’s in that mode in this tournament or the next one is going to win.”
Alabama wanted the ball bad enough to hustle down the rebounds but the Tide couldn’t finish and that iinability to finish was the difference in the game, particularly in the first half when the Crimson Tide actually had a chance to create some space on the scoreboard. Alabama led by as many as 11 (22-11) in the first half after Senario Hillman drained a three from the left wing with 9:25 to go but the Crimson Tide couldn’t deliver the knockout blow.
Alabama went 5-14 from the field the rest of the way and had three separate occasions with multiple shots but couldn’t convert. Kentucky, meanwhile, chipped away at the lead and took momentum into the half when Dodson knocked down a long three with six seconds to go to cut the halftime margin to 35-30.
Kentucky came out of the locker room ready to change the momentum of the game, scoring the first four points to make it a 35-34 game with 18:42 to go but Alabama regained its composure to go on a 5-0 run, taking a 40-34 lead with 16:51 left on a dunkback by Mitchell after Knox threw up a wild shot when Cousins went for the block.
From that point, Bledsoe and Wall took the game over.
“Basically, Coach told me to make a couple of plays,” Wall said. “They told me the whole game to push it in transition but I wasn’t getting there. I was trying to find my teammates. Second half, I found the gaps and got into the lane.”
With Wall getting into the gaps and Bledsoe finding creases on his own, Alabama was in trouble even though the Crimson Tide had the Wildcats locked down from the three-point line. Kentucky managed only 1-13 on threes for the whole game.
“We feel like when we get it going nobody can stop us,” Bledsoe said. “One of us makes a play and we just feed off each other and it gets everybody going. Coach says we bring the energy and the rest of the team will follow what we do.”
And once the Wildcats started feeding off the energy of Bledsoe and Wall, Ashley Judd started feeling it, too.
“I was never worried that we would win the game,” she said. “Once John Wall got it going, you could feel the energy in the whole building pick up. When they get going, Kentucky just can’t be stopped.”
Alabama certainly couldn’t stop the Wildcats on this afternoon.
GAME NOTES: Wall led Kentucky with 23 points, seven rebounds and five assists while Bledsoe had 10 points, four rebounds and three assists. Patterson had 20 while Cousins scored seven and grabbed eight boards … Mikhail Torrance led Alabama with 20 points in his final game in an Alabama uniform. Green had 14 points to go with his 11 rebounds … Green had perhaps the most spectacular play of the game when he came out of nowhere and blocked John Wall’s shot into row three on press row … Kentucky is now 112-22 all-time in SEC Tournament games.