Vanderbilt tops No. 1 Kentucky
VANDERBILT 71, NO. 1 KENTUCKY 64
NEW ORLEANS — John Calipari said from the time he arrived in New Orleans that he didn’t like conference tournaments.
After top-ranked Kentucky endured three tough games in as many days with no league title to show for it, his opinion wasn’t bound to change any time soon.
“I wish this would have happened yesterday so we got home a day earlier,” Calipari said Sunday after the Wildcats collapsed late in a 71-64 loss to Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament final.
The Wildcats (32-2) won two of their three games in New Orleans but never led any by more than single digits and trailed in the second half of all three.
Still, they were on the cusp of extending their winning streak to 25 games when Anthony Davis’ free throw gave them a 62-55 lead with 5:23 left. Then Kentucky suddenly started settling for jump shots, taking nine from that point and missing all of them, including five from three-point range.
Jeffery Taylor scored 18 points, John Jenkins added 17 and Vanderbilt rallied with a 16-2 run over the final 5 minutes to end the Wildcats’ winning streak that lasted more than three months.
Festus Ezeli had 17 points for Vanderbilt (24-10), which was playing in its first SEC Tournament final since 1951, the year of its only other championship. The Commodores pushed ahead in the final minutes with a few timely shots, but mostly with suffocating defense.
Darius Miller scored 16 points in a surprise start for Kentucky while Terrence Jones and Davis both added 12. Davis had 10 rebounds and three blocked shots, but he got into some rare early foul trouble that limited his effectiveness.
Kentucky missed its last 14 field goals in all, not hitting one over the final 8:04. The Wildcats shot just 35.9 percent from the field (23 of 64).
“Maybe now everybody realizes we’re not invincible,” Calipari said. “We’re like everybody else out there. We’re going to have to execute, play hard and with some aggressiveness and intensity or we will get beat.”
Kentucky moves on to NCAA Tournament games that will mean a lot more to them, but it remains to be seen whether LSU and Florida, which both gave the Wildcats tough games, and Vanderbilt, which beat them, provided UK’S future opponents with a strategic blueprint.
Vanderbilt also attacked the basket offensively rather than relying on jump shots. In the process, the Commodores got Kentucky forward Michael Kidd-gilchrist in foul trouble, and he fouled out with 2:51 to go.
Kidd-gilchrist had a pained expression on his face in the locker room afterward, giving short answers in hushed tones and blaming himself for getting in foul trouble and failing to get a single rebound.
Still, Kentucky appeared to be taking control when Jones’ successive powerful dunks put the Wildcats up 54-49 and worked the heavily-pro Kentucky crowd into a frenzy.
Vanderbilt worked its way back to tie the game at 62 on Ezeli’s tip-in with 1:56 left and took the lead for good when freshman Kedren Johnson converted a three-point play on a drive to the hoop.
The loss spoiled the Wildcats’ undefeated season against SEC competition. Kentucky is 18-1 against league foes.
ACC
Florida State takes title
ATLANTA — No. 17 Florida State won its first Atlantic Coast Conference basketball championship Sunday by holding off fourth-ranked North Carolina 85-82 in the title game.
Tournament MVP Michael Snaer scored 18 points for Florida State (24-9)
Harrison Barnes led North Carolina (29-5) with 23 points, while Tyler Zeller had 19 points and 12 rebounds.
Green leads Spartans
INDIANAPOLIS — Draymond Green now has the winning chapter in Michigan State history he has longed for.
Green had 12 points and nine rebounds to help the eighth-ranked Spartans beat No. 7 Ohio State 68-64 on Sunday in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.
Brandon Wood scored a season-high 21 points. Derrick Nix added 10 points for the Spartans (27-7), who claimed their first tournament title since 2000 in a dramatic game that featured 16 lead changes.
Jared Sullinger scored 18 points for Ohio State (27-7).