MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The eyes of the college basketball world were on De’Aaron Fox. Well, when they could stay with him anyway.
UCLA certainly wasn’t able to do it.
“He got to the lane every time he wanted to,” Malik Monk said. “Couldn’t nobody stop him from getting there so that’s what he did. Glad to have him.”
Playing in a matchup of two of the nation’s best point guards opposite Lonzo Ball, Fox took center stage. By the end of it, there was little doubt the star freshman was the best player on the floor in this Sweet 16 showdown in Memphis, Tennessee.
“He’s in contention for the No. 1 pick in the draft,” Fox said of Ball. “He’s a great player. We all know that. That’s one of my boys off the court, but on the court we’re going to go at each other and today I think I got the best of him.”
With Fox leading the way with a career-high 39 points in an 86-75 win, second-seeded UK (32-5) soared past No. 3 UCLA (31-5) and into a sixth Elite Eight appearance in John Calipari’s eight seasons and a second straight battle of the bluebloods. This one will come against top-seeded North Carolina with the South Region’s Final Four berth on the line on Sunday at 5:05 p.m. ET.
“You want to be on this stage,” Fox said. “Big-time players step up in big-time games and I stepped up today. I’m going to try to step up next game and hopefully more players are going to step up that someone might not expect. Just people stepping up at the right moment. I feel like we’re peaking. We’ve always said that we haven’t peaked yet, but we’re getting up there now.”
Fox dazzled from the jump against the Bruins. He scored UK’s first eight points on 4-of-4 shooting and had 15 by halftime, with no one else reaching double figures and the Wildcats leading a seesaw battle, 36-33.
Shooting so often gave Fox pause – he is a point guard after all – but his teammates assured him he needed to keep it up.
“I think I came out and scored the first eight and it was a timeout and they were like, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing,’ ” Fox said. “And then at halftime, I literally came in, I was like, ‘Man, where’s the score sheet? How many times did I shoot the ball?’ I felt like I was shooting too much. They were like, ‘Man, you keep shooting the ball,’ because I was scoring and I was executing.”
Fox kept on scoring and kept on executing after halftime. Flanked by Monk, his backcourt mate who broke out for 14 second-half points and 21 for the game, Fox repeatedly attacked UCLA on ball screens and eventually demoralized the Bruins in shooting 13 of 20 from the field and 13 of 15 at the free-throw line.
“All credit to him, he’s really, really good,” UCLA’s Bryce Alford said. “There’s a reason he is who he is and he has the hype around him. He’s very, very talented. … The way he used pick-and-rolls, and he could get to the spot that he went to just about every time, and he didn’t miss a whole lot of shots tonight, so you’ve got to give credit to him. If we had to do it all over again, I don’t know if we’d change our game plan. He was just phenomenal tonight.”
After Isaac Hamilton’s 3-pointer cut UK’s lead to 60-56 with 8:51 remaining, Kentucky answered with an 11-2 run that featured two free throws by Fox to push the lead back to double digits. From there, the celebration was on in FedExForum for a crowd unsurprisingly dominated by Kentucky fans.
“I felt like with like five minutes left when it was a timeout, we were running to our huddle,” Fox said. “We saw them walking and we’re like, ‘Look at them. They’re getting tired.’ We just had to try to finish the game.”
It was Fox UK turned to as it worked to salt away the final minutes of a victory that would clinch the program’s 33rd Elite Eight berth, most in the country. Fox scored the Cats’ last 11 points and would have scored 40 points if not for a missed free throw with 54 seconds left. He heard all about that from his teammates.
“If I’m scoring, everybody’s happy for me,” Fox said. “You don’t see anybody being selfish or anything like that. When I missed one of those free throws at the end, Malik was like, ‘Man, you’re scared to get 40.’ I was like, ‘Man, that’s crazy.’ Just knowing that my teammates love when I have a performance like this is that much more exciting.”
What’s most exciting is the way Fox is playing when it matters most. After a midseason lull, Fox has averaged 26 points and 9.2 free-throw attempts in the Southeastern Conference Tournament and NCAA Tournament. The second of those two numbers is the more significant in Coach Cal’s mind.
“He’s grown, but what he’s learned to do is play physical, not take a hit and fly and throw a ball,” Calipari said. “’He’s learned to play through bumps.”
The bumps aren’t bothering Fox anymore and neither are the bruises that had him missing games and playing at less than 100 percent. Good luck trying to slow him down now.
“When my knee got better, when my ankle got better, I wasn’t timid anymore,” Fox said. “I was going in, looking for contact, seeking contact and knowing that I’m going to make my free throws if I get fouled. I’m just riding that wave. I’ve been hot since the SEC Tournament and we’re just trying to keep it going. The season’s not over yet. We got more to play.”
