Mountaineers stun cold-shooting UK to get to Final Four

With its season-long quest to the Final Four 1 victory away, Kentucky picked a bad time to repeat its penchant to shoot poorly from three-point range and the foul line.

UK Coach John Calipari said greater than once that individuals shortcomings wouldn’t price the Cats. But they definitely did not aid in the 73-66 loss to West Virginia inside the NCAA Tournament East ­Regional finals Saturday.

Kentucky missed its first 20 three-point attempts en route to some 4-for-32 display of futility from beyond the arc. That marked UK’s third-worst accuracy of the couple of years. The Cats also shot their third-worst percentage from the season from your foul line: 55.2. They created only 11 of their initial 23 free of charge throws about the way to a 16-for-29 night.

Those points were dearly missed against a veteran West Virginia team that enjoyed 1 of its best three-point shooting games from the year or so. The Mountaineers created 10 three-pointers, only the sixth time all couple of years (and also the initial given that Feb. 6) that they made that many in a online game.

“The shoe was for the other foot tonight,” stated ­Darnell Dodson, who created two of nine attempts from three-point range.

Kentucky, which extended its school-record Final Four drought to 12 years, finished the season having a 35-3 record. The Cats lost in a regional last for the fourth time given that their last Final Fourappearance in 1998.

That UK fell so tantalizingly short of its Ultimate Four objective hurt.

“This year surely hurts the worst,” junior Patrick Patterson mentioned with the 3 season-ending losses he’s experienced at UK. “We had the chance. We had all the pieces to do it. And we fell brief against a team that played harder.”

In the fitting punctuation for the couple of years, freshmen led UK in this last online game. John Wall scored 19 factors. DeMarcus Cousins additional 15. Patterson scored eight factors in what may have been his last game for Kentucky. His 13 rebounds led UK’s 51-36 domination of the boards.

West Virginia improved to 31-6. The Mountaineers sophisticated for the Final four to the first time because Jerry West led them there in 1959.

Da’Sean Butler led West Virginia with 18 things. Point guard Joe Mazzulla, pressed into the starting role when Darryl Bryant broke his foot earlier within the week, contributed 17 factors along with a heady floor game. Kevin Jones added 13 factors and Devin Ebanks had 12.

Kentucky trailed at halftime 28-26, the very first deficit at intermission given that facing Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament championship game two weeks earlier.

Why did UK trail in the half it led for greater than 12 minutes, and by as a lot as seven points? To every headline writer’s delight, you could say the Butler did it.

Butler hit 4 three-pointers to lead a WVU rally. After going scoreless for the game’s very first 13 minutes, he erupted for 15 things in barely more than 5 minutes. That rapid-fire production erased Kentucky’s 16-9 lead and set West Virginia ahead 25-20.

Butler, who injured his proper (shooting) hand in Thursday’s victory over Washington, missed his initial five shots. He truly didn’t arrive close to scoring.

Then following the TV timeout at the 7:16 mark, Butler created up for lost time. On WVU’s very first possession, he hit his very first three-pointer to reduce Kentucky’s lead to 16-12. WVU Coach Bob Huggins casually swigged water from a jug as if knowing all was nicely.

Butler, who scored all 15 of his first-half points in less than six minutes, followed with 3 a lot more treys. For the third, he hit from your top with the crucial whilst becoming fouled by Wall. The four-point play set the Mountaineers ahead 25-20 with 2:50 to go.

Butler completed his first-half scoring by making two technical no cost throws. ­DeAndre Liggins got a technical foul with 1:37 left for apparently cursing.

Until Butler got planning, West Virginia seemed determined to shoot itself out of the video game from extended array. The Mountaineers came to the game ranked 198th in three-point accuracy. WVU’s eight first-half threes surpassed their couple of years typical of 6.8.

The Cats hurt themselves by missing all eight three-point attempts and turning above the ball 10 times.

“It surely drains your confidence a small bit,” ­Dodson said from the three-point misses. “We were missing each and every sort of way.”