Aaron Harrison of Kentucky after a narrow 68-66 victory over Notre Dame. The Wildcats improved to 38-0 and will play Wisconsin in a national semifinal. Credit Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
CLEVELAND — Back in the preseason, when most of the Notre Dame campus was focused on football and new classes, the players on the Fighting Irish basketball team gathered to discuss the goals for the coming season. Their aspirations were not modest.
The pursuit of a Final Four appearance, the men’s team’s first in almost 40 years, was the baseline, and a national championship was their mission statement.
If only those players had known at the time that mighty Kentucky would stand in their way, perhaps they would have downgraded their dreams just a bit. The 2015 college basketball season will countenance only one dream, and it may be bathed in Kentucky blue.
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Notre Dame gave Kentucky the scare of its season by playing fearlessly against a bigger team, and one widely viewed as more talented, that was supposed to cruise into the Final Four almost by decree. Kentucky was thought to be too tall, too deep and too agile to be overcome by the plucky Fighting Irish, but it only barely preserved its perfect record as it advanced.
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Notre Dame’s Zach Auguste defending Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns in the first half. Credit Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
But when Notre Dame’s final shot went long and Kentucky secured a harrowing win, it was the Kentucky bench that erupted in celebration, as if it were the underdog upsetting the giant.
The Kentucky machine, perhaps dented and fallible, still rolled to its 17th Final Four on Saturday after a 68-66 victory over a worthy Notre Dame team in the round of 8 at Quicken Loans Arena. The top-seeded Wildcats improved to an impeccable 38-0 and will play Wisconsin in the national semifinal next week in Indianapolis.
The teams went back and forth from the opening tip until the final seconds, when the game could have gone either way. With 2 minutes 33 seconds remaining, Jerian Grant, Notre Dame’s senior guard, hit a 3-pointer with the shot clock down to almost nothing, giving the Irish a 66-64 lead. But a minute later, the freshman Karl-Anthony Towns hit from in close to draw Kentucky even, and the Wildcats forced a shot-clock violation with 33 seconds to play.
On the next possession, Kentucky guard Andrew Harrison was fouled, and he coolly hit both free throws with six seconds remaining. Notre Dame inbounded to Grant, who rushed down the court into the corner in front of his bench and hoisted a desperation shot.
Towns scored 25 points to lead the Wildcats. No men’s team has ever gone 40-0 in one season, but that is what will have to happen if top-seeded Kentucky is to win its ninth N.C.A.A. championship, and its second under Coach John Calipari.
Until the regional finals here in Cleveland, there had been some hope that the Wildcats could be knocked off their perch. After their 39-point destruction of West Virginia in the round of 16, the Wildcats appeared to be back in charge, but barely. Notre Dame administered a severe test, from which Kentucky was fortunate to escape.
But now is the Wildcats are within two wins of becoming precedent-setters, the first unbeaten champions since 32-0 Indiana in 1976.
“We’re not perfect,†Calipari cautioned before Saturday’s game. “We’re undefeated. I mean, we should have lost five or six games. Easily, we could have lost those games.â€
They could have lost Saturday, but somehow did not.
Notre Dame put on a show for an audience that included LeBron James and J. R. Smith of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Notre Dame, as well as for many more rushing to television sets across the country as word spread of a potentially enormous upset.
Zach Auguste scored 20 points for Notre Dame, Grant added 15 points and 6 assists, and Steve Vasturia contributed 16 points.
To the consternation of the thousands of nervous Kentucky fans who swarmed throughout the arena, Notre Dame played like an equal, and the halftime score, 31-31, showed that.
Calipari spent much of the time in the first half yelling at his players as they returned to the bench following one mistake after another. The game had an inauspicious beginning for Notre Dame as Kentucky forward Trey Lyles threw down an alley-oop dunk just 11 seconds into the game.
But Notre Dame did not fold. Kentucky was extending its defense to shut down the 3-point shooting of Notre Dame, so Pat Connaughton slipped behind the defense and scored a layup, and when Steve Vasturia did the same a few minutes later, the Irish actually led, 6-3.
Connaughton hit a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer to give Notre Dame an 11-10 lead. It sent a message that it did not intend to fold, as West Virginia had against Kentucky in the previous game when it fell behind by 18-2 and never recovered.
A short time later, when Notre Dame forced a shot-clock violation, its fans roared their approval while the Kentucky fans sat glumly waiting for their team to come to life. The game went back and forth in the half, with Notre Dame desperately trying to keep the Wildcats from going on one of their game-defining runs.
Each time Kentucky made a basket or a defensive stand, Notre Dame responded. In one instance, with Kentucky leading by 2 points, Connaughton drove through the lane with the shot clock dwindling toward zero and missed a layup. But Zach Auguste, Notre Dame’s 6-foot-10-inch center, made up for it with a two-handed jam, hung on the rim and shouted toward a Notre Dame cheering section.
The score was 19-19, and there was 27 minutes to play, time enough still for Kentucky to pull away, if it could. But that did not happen until the last six seconds of a remarkable game and a worthy test.
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Kentucky Is Pushed to Brink by Notre Dame, but Isn't Done Yet - New York Times
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