Cats beat Phoenix despite sloppy play

By Jason Dattilo
Sports Editor

It wasn't a Picasso and it certainly wasn't much fun to watch, but when all the ugliness cleared, UK emerged with an uneventful 74-62 victory over the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay last night at Rupp Arena. The Phoenix brought its slow-down style to town, while the Cats spent most of the night trying to turn up the tempo. It looked as though the physically superior Wildcat squad was going to put away the Phoenix early -- the Cats led by as many as 22 points in the first stanza -- but Green Bay just wouldn't go away.

"It's very tough to knock out this team," said UK head coach Rick Pitino, whose squad raised its record to 3-1. "They just stay with their tempo. You're not going to beat this team by 30 or 35 points."

Each time UK seemed poised to make a run, Green Bay's only legitimate scoring threat, Jeff Norgaard, shot the Phoenix back into contention.

If it wasn't Norgaard, who led all scorers with 29 points, including 18 in the second half, it was the Cats' bumbling and fumbling the ball on offense.

At one point early in the second half the Cats -- always aiming for the spectacular -- missed a follow-up dunk and mishandled two lob passes during a two-minute span.

"I told the team rather than get dirty, get down the floor first, block out and do the right things they were trying to turn on the crowd," Pitino said. "We'll be a great lob team and have some spectacular dunks and we'll lose by 15 or 20 points in our conference each night."

While the Cats needed to get back to the basics on offense, it was the defensive performance that really irked Pitino, especially in the second half when the Phoenix shot 51 percent and cut the Wildcats' lead to 10 at 55-45 with 9:53 left.

The Green Bay run prompted Pitino to whistle for a :20 timeout. Following the break, UK guard Tony Delk nailed a 10 footer, but Norgaard answered with a dunk off a baseline drive. UK again traded baskets with Norgaard, but a Walter McCarty layup and two Antoine Walker free throws gave the Cats a 14-point lead with timeout on the floor and 7:52 left.

Green Bay (2-2) never got closer than 10 the rest of the way, but the defensive performance still led to sarcasm from Pitino.

"I'm just going to go out and get the best bottle of wine and celebrate with my wife," Pitino quipped. "... but she'll probably have nothing to do with me because of our defense."

What's the problem?

"We're not showing the kind of heart and determination that we need on defense," said Walker, who finished with 13 points. "We always play hard, but it's one thing to play hard and it's another thing to go out and execute and follow the game plan.

"They outworked us. They didn't just come in here to play Kentucky on their schedule."

In the first half, Delk looked unstoppable, scoring nine of the Cats' first 12 points as the Wildcats built a 35-13 lead with 3:37 left. But the Phoenix closed the half with an 11-3 run.

"It was the early press and falling into that big hole that killed us," Nordgaard said. "After that I think we played them about even."

Green Bay's defense didn't help its cause. The Phoenix committed 23 personal fouls, and the Wildcats were able to sink 26-of-35 from the charity stripe.

Delk led the Cats with 17 points with Mercer (11), McCarty (10) and Derek Anderson (10) all reaching double figures.