TAMPA, Fla. — Sewn through Josh Harrellson’s sweaty brow with blood still oozing from the seams, four stitches above Harrellson’s left eye symbolized the full-out war the senior forward has just been through.
Harrellson scored 15 points and recorded eight rebounds, and freshman guard Brandon Knight scored a career-high 30 points to lead the Kentucky men’s basketball team back to the Sweet 16 for the second consecutive season. UK avenged last season’s Elite Eight loss to West Virginia with a 71-63 win Saturday, out-toughing the fifth-seeded Mountaineers in the third round of the NCAA Tournament in Tampa, Fla.
After enduing arguably the most physical battle of the year at the most important time of the season, perhaps the four stitches mean even more to this group: four more wins for a national championship.
“It’s sweet,” junior guard DeAndre Liggins said. “I’m just happy we beat the team that beat us last year.”
A youth-driven, inexperienced and shorthanded Kentucky team out-rebounded, out-scrapped and outlasted a West Virginia team that was among the roughest and toughest in college basketball. The Cats held their own on the boards, winning the battle of the glass 34-30.
Freshman forward Terrence Jones awoke after halftime to record seven of his 10 rebounds, and Harrellson notched seven of his eight after halftime. The Wildcats said the key to the game would be matching West Virginia’s physical toughness, and the Cats went head to head with the Mountaineers, even knocking a few heads to get there.
Late in the game, with Kentucky clinging to a 60-56 lead, Harrellson took an elbow to the eyebrow from WVU guard Casey Mitchell. Harrellson would go to the bench briefly to get the cut cleaned and return with a bandage above his eye.
It was a mark of toughness for a player who played like a raging bull among a paint filled with wild animals. Harrellson proved to be the strongest of them all.
“I definitely knew it was going to be physical,” Harrellson said. “I’m just happy for the guys with how we responded to the physical (play). We actually played tough against them back and it kind of caught them off guard a little bit.”
Although the players said this game wasn’t a rematch, for a while it looked like it was going to be a rerun of last year’s game in Syracuse, N.Y.
Knight got the Cats rolling early with 12 of UK’s first 16 points. Riding the momentum of Thursday’s game-winning layup over Princeton – his only field goal that game – Knight ignited Kentucky to an early 23-16 lead.
“I felt more confident,” Knight said of his 9-of-20 shooting afternoon. “My teammates continued to have faith in me even though I didn’t play such a great game. They still had faith in me and they really helped me out today, finding me and stuff like that. They really stepped their level of play up, which got me more shots.”
Soon thereafter, though, the whistles started to blow and the fouls started to mount. By halftime, four UK players were in foul trouble (Doron Lamb had three, and Jones, Harrellson and Eloy Vargas had two), and West Virginia rode an 8-0 run to close the half with a 41-33 lead.
To that point, WVU senior guard Joe Mazzulla had 15 points, three off his career high and just two short the season-high 17 he posted against Kentucky last year. Rehashing nightmares of last season’s Elite Eight game, Mazzulla knifed his way to the basket for uncontested layups.
Mazzulla, who finished with 20 points, and West Virginia were well on their way to punking Kentucky again until somebody decided to step up and and fight back.
That man was Liggins. Having watched a player who averages 7.3 points per game torch the Cats again, Liggins spoke up at halftime.
“It didn’t come from coach or the assistants,” Liggins said. “(Mazzulla) had the hot hand, so I said, ‘I’m going to guard him.’ I took it upon myself to guard him.”
As Liggins has done so many times before, he shut down his opposition.
After Mazzulla hit 5-of-7 field goals in the first half, Liggins stuck to Mazzulla like flypaper. He cracked a window of opportunity for Mazzulla to drive right on most possessions, but it was a trap for the left-handed point guard. On all but two occasions, Liggins and the Cats closed the door shut, cutting off the head of the West Virginia offense.
“He’s one of the best (defenders) I’ve ever seen and one of the best I’ve had to play against,” Knight said. “His length and his ability to move like a 6-foot point guard, and his energy, always trying to get up in you, make you uncomfortable.”
The Cats fed off Liggins’ energy to begin the second half. UK went on an 11-0 run after halftime to retake the lead, and when West Virginia fought back, Kentucky, as it has so often during its season-high eight-game winning streak, didn’t back down.
Trailing 55-51, Calipari called timeout, and, oddly enough, called Jones’ number. After a lackluster first half, the move seemed curious, but Jones played off his coaches’ confidence, spun in the paint and knocked down an 8-foot jumper. On the next possession, he received a slick dish from Knight for a two-hand slam.
Then, after a nonexistent first 35 minutes, junior guard/forward Darius Miller knocked down the biggest 3-pointer of the game, a dagger from the left wing to put UK ahead by five with 4:11 left to go.
It was a shot Miller wouldn’t have taken months ago – ahem, Ole Miss – but this is a new player, a tougher, more confident Miller.
“I let it go,” Miller said of his only field goal. “I wasn’t going to quit shooting. I’ve still got confidence in my shot. I don’t want to quit shooting just because I’m missing.”
But the epitome of the Cats’ passion existed in the 6-foot-10 frame of a guy who not only was supposed to get pushed around by West Virginia’s bigs, but was never even slated at the beginning of the season to be in the position he is now: Josh Harrellson.
In between Jones’ four straight points and Miller’s trey, Harrellson provided the play of the game. Following a missed 3-pointer by Knight, Harrellson crashed the glass for an offensive board, missed, grabbed a rebound again, missed, and then corralled it one last time and banked his shot in as he was getting fouled.
“I just sought an opportunity to go get a ball,” Harrellson said. “I missed the first one and I saw an opportunity to go get it again and just tried to keep it alive. I knew we were down a little bit and I was trying to fight for my teammates to get us back in the game, and there was an opportunity there to get us a couple points, so I had to go get it.”
The play, the comeback and the fight earned the players their highest badge of honor from their head coach, John Calipari.
“He actually called us tough today after the game,” said Miller, noting the first-time compliment. “That’s a big step for us.”
And one giant leap to the Sweet 16.
