One game that nobody assumed would matter turned into a huge upset. After barely making the cut to be televised on the SEC Network, the Purple Aces of Evansville led at halftime then finally beat the number one ranked Kentucky Wildcats.
Sam Cunliffe came up big for Evansville in the final 10 seconds, making two foul shots to put his team up by three. That forced Kentucky to shoot a three pointer just to tie the game. Tyrese Maxey tossed up Kentucky’s shot with two seconds left and missed.
After the game, Kentucky coach John Calipari told the media, “They outrebounded us, they out-toughed us, they made more threes, drove us for layups. I mean, they deserved to win.” Evansville’s current coach, Walter McCarty, is a Kentucky graduate who played for the 1996 Kentucky basketball NCAA championship team. After being asked where this ranked in his big moments at Kentucky he replied, “This is at the top.” After many great moments for him in his college days, everyone will believe that he is a coach who cares about more than keeping his job when he states that Tuesday night trumps all of them.
As college basketball goes, this game probably won’t matter to Evansville in terms of making the NCAA tournament after finishing 17-15 and ninth in the Missouri Valley conference last year. Though the players on the Evansville basketball team this year won’t soon forget beating Kentucky in just their second game of the season. If a team like Evansville beat a team like Alabama in football, this would be a different story. That would probably knock Alabama out of the College Football Playoff. But, this is basketball and it probably won’t matter to Kentucky except for knowing that they let a team of a tier many below them beat them.
After Kentucky’s win over #3 Michigan State in their first game of the season, they probably expected to run all over their opponents until December 21st, when they will take on Ohio State. That definitely didn’t happen and they will have to watch out for schools like Mount Saint Mary’s and FDU in the near future.
This was an absolutely stunning upset that didn’t make too much of a difference in the basketball world, but definitely made a difference in the atmosphere on the Evansville campus as well as on the players for both teams.