INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Kelenna Azubuike scored 19 points and second-seeded Kentucky held Cincinnati scoreless for the final 2:41 to escape with a 69-60 second-round NCAA tournament victory Saturday night.
Rajon Rondo added 16 points for Kentucky (27-5). Randolph Morris finished with 11 points and 12 rebounds as the Wildcats avoided a second straight second-round exit. They will face sixth-seeded Utah in the Austin Regional semifinals.
Nick Williams scored 16 points and Jihad Muhammad added 14 for seventh-seeded Cincinnati (26-7), which was trying to become the third straight Conference USA school to eliminate Kentucky from the tournament. The Bearcats have lost 15 straight to their nearby rival and still haven’t beaten Kentucky since 1939.
The bitterness between the two schools, who have rarely played since 1948, was evident throughout the RCA Dome, where there was a Final Four-like atmosphere. The crowd of 40,331 set a one-session record for any NCAA subregional site, breaking the previous mark of 39,940 set in Indianapolis in 1990. Most of the fans were clad in Kentucky blue or Illinois orange, but as the second game started, pockets of Bearcats red were visible, too.
Fans interrupted each other’s chants and one fan held a sign that read “Real Cats Wear Blue and White, not Black and Red.”
On the floor, the emotions were even stronger. Cincinnati’s James White had an angry look on his face during pregame warmups and Kentucky players were chest bumping before introductions.
The coaches got into it, too. Cincinnati’s Bob Huggins worked the officials hard, and Kentucky’s Tubby Smith repeatedly stomped the floor and walked across the sideline to make points.
It was that kind of day – and that kind of game.
The difference was Kentucky’s inside power, where it outscored Cincinnati 34-12.
And Hayes sparked the game-sealing run by posting for back-to-back layups. Randolph Morris followed that by grabbing an errant pass that bounced off the front of the rim, scoring and drawing the fourth foul on Cincinnati’s Jason Maxiell with 3:56 to go. That made it 64-59.
The Bearcats were shutout the rest of the way.
