Milwaukee
The first half was a defensive clinic. The second half was an offensive celebration.
The result? A trip to the Sweet 16 for the Kentucky Wildcats, who will keep on dancing into the second week of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years.
Kentucky beat Illinois 84-75 on Sunday night. The Wildcats did it inside of a Fiserv Forum that featured more orange than UK blue. The fans in Milwaukee — not far from Chicago, a major base for Illini fans — were louder for Illinois’ big plays than they were for Kentucky’s. That’s not common this time of year. But, then again, it wasn’t really common Sunday night either.
Lamont Butler made sure of that. And Koby Brea. And Otega Oweh. And Andrew Carr. And Amari Williams. And a few other Wildcats, too.
Every time those fans in orange started to get a little rowdy, one Cat or another would do something to quiet them down. And, by the end, chants of “Go Big Blue!” provided the soundtrack as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
Mark Pope, the first-year coach with the weight of a Big Blue Nation on his shoulders, was hugging everyone in sight. His players, all of them playing elsewhere this time last year — all of them in their first season as Kentucky Wildcats — were celebrating, too.
A season-long series of struggles, doubts and adversity will go on for at least a few days longer. Kentucky will play Tennessee on Friday night in Indianapolis. What got the Wildcats to this moment?
“It’s just the love we have for each other,” Williams said. “I feel like everybody just wanted to be on the court fighting for one another, and it showed tonight. We don’t worry about anything else — just the people we have in our circle. And that’s the way it’s been the whole season, and that’s what got us to this point.”
On this night, a team known for its offense all season long set the tone on the other side of the ball.
The contest was still scoreless when Butler landed, quite literally, the first punch. Kentucky’s pest of a perimeter defender punched the ball right out of the hands of Illinois point guard Kasparas Jakucionis and ran the other way with it.
Butler found Brea under the basket for a layup, and the next few minutes brought more of the same. Jakucionis already had three turnovers a little more than five minutes into the game. He ended up with six for the night. Only two of those were officially steals by Butler, but UK’s all-world defender hounded him — and everyone else in his vicinity — all night long.
“I just felt bad for the freshman guard — I forgot his name — but when you see a guy like Lamont in front of you, you’re kind of on your heels a little bit,” Williams said. “You got to protect the ball even more. And I feel like that’s just the kind of intensity he brings to the game.”
Illinois committed eight turnovers in the first 11 minutes and change.
“We have Lamont Butler as the head of defense,” Brea said. “So I feel like, for any team, when you see him pick you up, it has to put something in your stomach — some nerves or something.”
This wasn’t just any team. Illinois boasts one of the best offenses in college basketball. Kentucky, until recently, was viewed as a not great — to put it kindly — defensive team. But the Cats have made undeniable gains in recent weeks, and their D was relentless on this night.
They had eight steals less than 12 minutes in. They smothered Illinois’ five-out offense. The Illini tried a series of screens to get their scoring attack going, and the Cats just switched and kept on smothering.
“That was huge for us to set the tone of the game,” Carr said. “And I feel like it just came down to doing a great job of executing what we wanted to do coming into the game. You know, it’s tough. You put a lot of stress on the defense when you have shooters all around the horn. All five people can really deadly shoot the ball. And so it really turned into a lot of switching. … And with that, we were able to be super aggressive, and it kind of turned them over a little bit.”
It turned them over. It silenced the crowd. It got Kentucky out to a big lead.
Kentucky guard Otega Oweh (00) reacts during a second-round NCAA Tournament victory against Illinois at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Sunday. Ryan C. Hermens [email protected]
The Cats were already up double digits by the time they got that eighth steal. And Butler, who went scoreless in Friday night’s victory against Troy, a left shoulder injury that’s been bothering him for two months still clearly messing with his offensive timing, was a big part of that.
Kentucky’s lead guard had 10 points in the first half, when he didn’t miss a shot from the field. What kind of difference does he make on the court? Anyone who’s seen these Cats already knows.
“We’re night and day,” Oweh said. “On defense, we’re night and day. Offense, we’re night and day. He just does so much for us.”
The Illini wouldn’t go away so easily, though. A 12-point Kentucky lead was whittled down to three late in the first half. Two free throws by Trent Noah put the Cats ahead 37-32 at the break. Still plenty of time for a team as talented as Illinois to unleash a run.
The message in the halftime locker room was a simple one. Don’t let this slip away.
“As soon as we get the lead, we’re keeping it. We’re keeping our foot on the gas, and we’re not letting up,” said Collin Chandler, who had three steals in the first half and hit big 3-pointers on both sides of the break.
Chandler and the Cats knew Illinois would hit some shots and go on some runs at some point in the second half. “When teams go into fight or flight mode, it’s kind of when shots start falling, they start doing things uncharacteristic,” he said. “But I think we stayed poised through that.”
They did. But, first, they built a lead that was almost insurmountable.
The first possession of the second half ended with another Illinois turnover. Oweh, who spent most of the first half on the bench in foul trouble, scored on the other end. And then Carr hit a layup. And then Butler hit a jumper. And then Oweh scored again. Williams followed that with a fast-break dunk, and Kentucky had turned a 37-32 lead into a 47-32 advantage in no time flat.
“Stacking plays is huge,” Chandler said. “That second half — that run that we went on — was just stacking plays. Otega had some run-outs. Amari had some run-outs. And that’s just when it gets deflating for a team, is when you’re stacking plays like that. And so I think that what they felt — was deflated a little bit. And we were able to capitalize on it.”
Illinois wasn’t finished yet. The Illini pulled within nine points. And then Koby Brea happened.
Kentucky’s best shooter scored eight points in 59 seconds.
“It was magical to watch,” Carr said.
A couple of minutes later, Brea hit another jumper to put Kentucky ahead 70-54. He backpedaled down the court, shaking his head. No one could stop him. His teammates smiled and laughed at the mention of his name in the postgame locker room. They’d seen this show before. But Pope wanted to talk about something else.
Asked what sparked this defensive turnaround for his Wildcats, the analytically minded coach mentioned data and teamwork. But, for Pope, it was something far more simple.
“The easy answer for me is: It’s Koby Brea,” he said.
Pope explained for a national audience what he’s been telling those around Lexington for weeks. When Brea decided — after the Cats’ humiliating loss at Ole Miss on Feb. 4 — to take defense personally, a flip was switched across the board for this team.
“After we came home from Ole Miss, he went through two straight practices where — we start practice with banner behavior, which is essentially some skills, but it’s before we get fully warm — and he came out in banner behavior and was flying around, diving on the floor,” Pope said. “And he just changed. It became, not a job, but it became something insanely personal to him.”
Brea ended up with a game-high 23 points. Kentucky scored on its first seven possessions of the second half. The Cats made 10 straight 2-pointers after halftime before they finally missed.
But defense set the tone.
And toward the end — with the Illini attempting yet another run — Butler made one more stunning play, swiping the ball from Jakucionis in the backcourt and finding Brandon Garrison for an and-one finish. Garrison screamed and flexed for the crowd. The Cats’ lead was back to 12 points.
Thirty-five games into the season, teammates still marvel at the plays that Butler can make. When he entered the locker room, someone shouted, “LeMarch!” — the nickname for a player who helped lead his old team, San Diego State, to the national championship game two years ago. Carr, sitting on one side of the room, laughed out loud.
“It’s kind of cool to be able to sit around the basket, just see him at three-quarters court, just being able to do whatever he wants,” he said with another laugh.
Kentucky fans cheer during a second-round NCAA Tournament game against Illinois at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Sunday. Ryan C. Hermens [email protected]
It still wasn’t finished.
Illinois narrowed Kentucky’s lead to 74-68 with a little more than 90 seconds left. The Cats controlled the game all night long, but madness has been known to happen this time of year.
A day earlier, upon being informed that UK — despite being a better seed in the NCAA Tournament bracket — was actually an underdog in this game, Carr said he wasn’t surprised. He said his team had been doubted all season. He knew Illinois fans would make the short trip from Chicago — and elsewhere in the bordering state — and he knew the Cats would be outnumbered.
Carr said he and his teammates welcomed that scene. They’d thrived in it so far.
And clinging to that six-point lead, the orange-clad fans roaring, Carr made a power move at the rim, got the bucket and got fouled in the process. He made the and-one motion. He stormed over to the UK bench and slapped hands with every teammate he could reach. As he did, some of those Illinois fans started heading for the exits. The Cats would keep on dancing.
“It feels great to be able to make a play that has such a big impact on the flow of the game, the momentum of the game,” Carr said. “And so that felt awesome. And then when the crowd gets quiet, and you see all the fans leaving, you know, there’s no better feeling in sports.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2025 at 11:09 PM.
