Louisville holds off Kentucky in another instant classic

Quentin Snider scored a career-high 22 points for the Cardinals.

According to Ken Pomeroy, college basketball’s go-to guy for advanced statistics, Louisville leads the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency, allowing just 87.7 points per 100 possessions. Two-time Patriot League Rookie of the Week Sa’eed Nelson also contributed 11 points for the Eagles, who had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.

“Yeah, that was big”, Snider said with a smile. And they still might have fallen in this game, because the Cardinals are as good as most anyone.

“That was big”, Snider said.

Then Monk was forced to leave the party less than eight minutes into the game with his second foul, only six points on his worksheet and his team struggling.

“The key to stop the fast break is that you have to take great shots, and we were getting great shots”, Pitino said.

Rick Pitino will have his Louisville team ready to play against a talented Kentucky squad.

Kentucky had all kinds of problems – foul trouble, not hitting free throws down the stretch, working in an opponent’s hot house atmosphere – and it still had a chance to win late.

A year ago, Snider didn’t score in 28 minutes in a two-point loss against the Wildcats in Lexington and his father, Scott, said he “replayed that game in his head a lot”, over the few days after the loss. Zone, because I’m not playing zone.

“I think just being a rivalry in general it’s going to be one of those games where it’s high intensity”. Really, it was just believing in myself and having confidence. In the space of one offseason, United Kingdom has gone from being in the 200s in Division I in terms of pace to ranking among the fastest-paced teams in the country.

United Kingdom started the game in a fashion that had those watching wonder if it was the fastest collegiate ensemble they’d ever seen? “But we see that day in and day out in practice, so it wasn’t a surprise to us”.

Jon Rothstein, CBS Sports: Kentucky’s first true road game will test the mettle of its young backcourt.

Clemson had never beaten a ranked nonconference team on the road until Avry Holmes made three of four free throws in the final 20.3 seconds to give the Tigers a 62-60 win at No. 22 SC.

No. 6 United Kingdom played young, which John Calipari definitely pointed out a few times. “He leads by example as opposed to his voice, and he did both tonight”.

Jaylen Johnson had 14 points and six rebounds and Donovan Mitchell finished with 13 points in the win for the hosts, which trailed 40-39 at halftime. “They were all good. How will he perform against the Wildcats’ great guard play and will this be a game where he disappears or shows up with a breakout performance”.

No. 6 Kentucky has had a fall from grace with regards to what was expected from them this season. Probably because the games between the teams are always among the best attended, attract maximum media exposure, and are fiercely contested.

“We changed up defenses”, Snider said. As mentioned, Fox and Monk are the catalysts to this offense but it’s an all around effort from this starting five that will lead them to victory. They took away their two guys. “Just tried to slow them down”.

The first half brought a pace perhaps favoring United Kingdom, which held a 40-39 lead at the break, but the Cards were able to slow things down just a bit in the second half. The freshman fell back to Earth hard following his insane scoring outburst turning in only 16 points against the Cardinals on 6-for-17 shooting from the field and 1-for-9 shooting from deep.