Mardi Gras Miracle, part deux?
That became the challenge Kentucky faced at LSU on Tuesday night. The original Mardi Gras Miracle saw UK rally from 31 points down in the second half to win in 1994.
This time, Kentucky had to overcome injury, foul trouble and a crowd roused into a celebratory mood by a ceremony in which LSU named its court after former coach Dale Brown.
LSU won, 65-60, but Kentucky could still be credited with a miraculous effort.
When previewing Tuesday night’s game, LSU coach Will Wade clearly did not anticipate the twists and turns of this basketball drama. He spoke plainly about the challenge Kentucky presented.
“Look, they’re Kentucky,” he said. “They’ve got good players. What do you expect?”
Wade saluted Kellan Grady as the best 3-point shooter in the Southeastern Conference and Oscar Tshiebwe as the best rebounder in the country.
Wade also said that Sahvir Wheeler, who missed most of the game with an injury, was among the nation’s best assist men. Wheeler came into the game ranked third in Division I in assists.
“A guy who we couldn’t guard last year at Georgia,” Wade said. Wheeler had 14 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds — the first triple-double in Georgia basketball history — in that game.
Yet, the opponent LSU played was not that Kentucky.
If all that wasn’t enough adversity, UK’s point guard alternative, freshman TyTy Washington had to be helped off the court with 8:40 left in the second half.
A 20-2 run put LSU ahead 61-52 with 2:37 left.
Helped by three straight LSU turnovers, Kentucky closed to within 61-60 thanks to a 3-pointer and basket off a drive by Davion Mintz.
With a miracle within grasp, Kentucky turned it over twice in the final seconds. LSU converted both to win.
UK fell to 11-3. LSU improved to 13-1.
Mintz led UK with 16 points. Jacob Toppin added 14.
Kentucky’s halftime deficit of 35-30 seemed like a plus given Wheeler’s injury, Tshiebwe’s foul trouble and Grady’s poor shooting.
Wheeler exited at the 16:07 mark when he ran into a Efton Reid screen sight unseen. He crumpled to the court and stayed there. He needed help from two people to walk off the court and go to the locker room. He had little impact on the first four minutes, missing his only shot and having a one-to-one assist-to-turnover ratio.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas faulted Tshiebwe for not alerting Wheeler to the screen set by one of LSU’s “bigs.”
Less than five minutes later, Tshiebwe (eight points, 13 rebounds) committed his second foul and went to the bench. He did not return. He finished the half with an un-Oscar-like six points and three rebounds.
If playing without the team’s twin pillars was not challenging enough, Kentucky had to compete without getting a basket from Grady in the first half.
Grady, perhaps the nation’s hottest shooter having made 20 of 31 3-point shots in the last four games, missed all seven of his shots in the first half. Six came from 3-point range.
That contributed to UK’s 1-for-11 shooting from beyond the arc.
With Toppin leading the way, Kentucky did not yield. He scored 13 points in the first half. That was three shy of the career high 16 he scored at Vanderbilt last season.
Combined with nine LSU turnovers, Kentucky could hang in there.
LSU led three times by six points in the first inside the first nine minutes. But LSU scored only tow baskets from the 12:28 mark to the 5:41 mark. In that span, the Tigers had six turnovers.
Kentucky made its first three 3-point shots — all from a corner — to start the second half. That gave UK its largest lead at 39-35 and prompted a LSU timeout with 17:09 left.
The flurry included Grady’s first basket: a corner 3 with 17:59 left. He finished with 13 points.
Bilas credited Tshiebwe drawing defense, thus creating open shots.
Another 3-pointer by Grady put Kentucky ahead 47-39 with 14:37 left. Yet another — his fourth in the first seven minutes — extended UK’s lead to 50-41 with 13:05 left.
But this was not the night for a routine pull away to victory.
LSU scored the next eight points to reduce Kentucky’s lead to 50-48.
Worse, the ESPN cameras caught Washington being tended on the bench by media staff. Then with 8:40 left, he was helped off the court.
Washington returned to the game with 6:11 left. By then, Darius Days capped a 13-2 LSU run with a 3-pointer to put UK behind 54-52. Days had missed seven of his previous eight shots from beyond the arc.
A second-chance floater by Pinson extended the run to 15-2 and made UK’s deficit 56-52 going into the final four minutes.
