Andrew Harrison's free throws cap closing rally, send Cats back to Final Four

March 28, 2015

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CLEVELAND – Aaron Harrison has been called clutch too many times to count.

In his two Kentucky seasons he’s never shied away from a moment, no matter how big.

But even he didn’t want any part of the shots his twin brother was about to take with a Final Four berth on the line.

“Free throws is different,” Aaron Harrison said. “You gotta sit there and think about free throws. I’m happy it was him.”

With six seconds left in an Elite Eight matchup with Notre Dame, Andrew Harrison drove and drew a foul on Demetrius Jackson. Following a timeout called by the Fighting Irish, he toed the line in a 66-66 game, every eye in Quicken Loans Arena trained squarely on him

Except his brother’s.

“I didn’t look at the first one,” Aaron Harrison said. “I tried to look away at the first one.”

When the pro-Kentucky crowd roared its approval after the first, Aaron’s ears told him all he needed to know. Certain he would make the second, Aaron was able to bear watching as Andrew gave UK (38-0) its final margin of 68-66 in a heart-stopping affair, a margin that remained intact as Jerian Grant missed a contested 3-pointer as time expired.

“You had to block out everything,” Andrew Harrison said. “I don’t even know what I was thinking at that time. You just block out everything, try to make the shot.”

It was a role reversal for the Harrison twins, and for Andrew to be the one to deliver the game-winning points.

In the final timeout, John Calipari elected to put the ball in his point guard’s hands. After UK bled the clock, Andrew had options to drive or hit Karl-Anthony Towns in the post, Willie Cauley-Stein for a lob or Aaron at the top of the key.

Seeing a lane, Andrew went on the attack and created the opportunity to prove he has the clutch gene just like his brother, a gene Aaron Harrison showed again just minutes prior.

“He still made the big 3,” Andrew Harrison said.

The big 3 came with 3:15 on the clock. The Cats, in the midst of a rally after previously trailing by six points with 6:14 to go, trailed by just two when Aaron Harrison pulled up from the right wing. Nursing a left ring finger still sore after it was dislocated in a Sweet 16 win Thursday night, he had just three points on 1-of-6 shooting when he did.

It was no problem.

“And that was a deep shot,” Andrew Harrison said. “I mean, it’s Aaron. So y’all know what to expect from him.”

Aaron Harrison’s 3 was one of nine consecutive shots UK made over the final 10:24 in yet another remarkable display of closing out a game by the Cats. Over its final 13 possessions, UK scored 24 points.

“That’s what we do,” Aaron Harrison said. “We get stops at winning time. We’ve been down before in games. It wasn’t like we’ve never been down before and had to come back. We’ve been down nine with four or five minutes to go and we just had to get stops and get baskets. That’s what we do when we need to. When desperation times come, I think we step up.”

Towns was foremost among players stepping up when it mattered most. The 6-foot-11 forward played through foul trouble to score nine of his career-best 25 points over that final stretch, including the game-tying basket in the post with 1:12 left.

“I just go in with a lot of confidence and my moves were working,” Towns said. “I just kept trying to utilize them and keep switching it up, going from the right hand to the left hand and just kept switching up what I was doing. God bless it was happening and it was working.”

For a while, it seemed Towns’ dominance would be rendered but a footnote by a clinical Notre Dame offense. The Fighting Irish hit 46.4 percent from the field for the game, using one play repeatedly to flummox UK’s historically stingy defense.

“I don’t know if our breakdowns, until I watch the tape, were us or Notre Dame being that good offensively,” UK head coach John Calipari said. “And I’ll tell you the thing on the side pick-and-roll and the empty side pick-and-roll, that’s on me as a coach. We never figured it out, we tried doing some different things and they just kept scoring on that, and Mike (Brey) did what he should have, just kept going back at it.”

Notre Dame used the play to score 1.16 points per possession, a season high for a UK opponent, but the Cats locked down when it mattered most. The Irish managed just a single field goal over the final five minutes, UK’s most impressive stop setting up the game-winning free throws.

Grant, Notre Dame’s senior All-American, had the ball at the top of the arc with Cauley-Stein guarding him on a switch. Trying the go-to move that had given Cauley-Stein fits, Grant took a 3 that the presumptive national defensive player of the year somehow blocked.

“I’d be anywhere I needed to be and I think it just was kinda meant to be for me and him, to be on there, be guarding him and going in like that,” Cauley-Stein said. “I was just fortunate enough to get my fingertips on it. His step-back is vicious. It’s probably one of the coldest step-backs I’ve guarded. And he hit me with it a couple, early in the game and I was just like, I don’t know how to guard this. I don’t know. And I just had momentum going at the time and was able to put some fingertips on it.”

Cauley-Stein was all over Grant again on the final shot of the game, chasing him from 3-point line to 3-point line with Andrew Harrison alongside him. When the shot missed well long, the celebration began.

“You saw how the game ended,” Towns said. “We were jumping and running from the bench. Just because we’re supposed to do something doesn’t mean it happens. There are a lot of things you’re supposed to do in life. Sometime it doesn’t go your way. Just blessed to have it so far go our way and we have more work to do, but we’re going to really cherish this moment and enjoy this moment.”

It’s a moment worth enjoying, especially considering UK is making its second Final Four trip in a row and fourth in five seasons. Not only that, the Cats also tied an NCAA record for most wins in a season, a record they share with Coach Cal’s teams at Kentucky and Memphis in 2012 and 2008, respectively. On Saturday, UK will go for the record on its own against Wisconsin in the Final Four.

“We’re going to enjoy tonight and tomorrow,” Andrew Harrison said. “Monday we’re going to get back at it. Just like two more games. You really remember the feeling that you had after the (national championship) game last year. So you don’t want to have that feeling again.”