COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURNAMENT : Marquette’s Upset Tied to Phone Call : Southeast: Warriors defeat Kentucky, 75-63, after O’Neill talks strategy with former boss Olson.

Five years of hard work and a late-night telephone call put Marquette back in the Sweet 16.

Coach Kevin O’Neill, drawing on advice from one of his former bosses, found a way for Tony Miller to beat Kentucky’s defensive pressure, and the Warriors survived a furious second-half comeback Sunday to upset the Wildcats, 75-63, in the second round of the NCAA Southeast Regional.

Lute Olson, O’Neill’s mentor for three years at Arizona, told the Marquette coach Saturday night that the best way to approach Kentucky’s tenacious full-court pressure was to have his point guard take the ball right at the biggest players on the floor.

The Wildcats’ frontcourt was no match for Miller’s quickness or the power of Damon Key, a 6-foot-8, 245-pound forward who thrived on easy baskets set up by Miller’s ballhandling.

“I can’t say that’s something original on my part,” said O’Neill, who five years ago took over a once-proud program that had fallen on hard times. “Lute gets the credit for that. I called because I needed help.

“He’s the guy who taught me a lot of the things I know.”

Key scored 25 points and Miller, a 5-foot-11 playmaker with three times as many assists as turnovers this season, broke Kentucky’s press for a key basket as the sixth-seeded Warriors (24-8) held on after squandering most of an 18-point lead.

Tony Delk scored 22 of his 24 points in the second half as third-seeded Kentucky, which three times this season overcame double-digit deficits to win, rallied from a 42-24 deficit.

The Kentucky guard scored 12 in a 15-0 run that got the Wildcats back into the game, then made his fourth three-point basket during a 10-2 spurt that trimmed Marquette’s lead to 56-54 with 6:40 to play.

Miller took over from there, dribbling the length of the floor to beat Kentucky’s pressure and make a layup over Jared Prickett, then avoiding costly mistakes down the stretch.

“I knew all along that the type of team they are, the way they shoot threes, they could get back on us in a hurry,” Miller said. “Just because they got close, we didn’t want to go to a half-court offense.

“Once I started dribbling and got into the open, nobody came at me because it’s known I’m usually going to pass. This time I kept it.”

Marquette made 10 of 12 free throws in the final 2:19 and held Kentucky (27-7) to 32% shooting from the field, including 10 of 38 three-point attempts. The Wildcats made one of 11 three-point shots in the first half.

“The first half we were forcing shots, just coming down and jacking them up,” said Delk, who made five of eight three-point shots after halftime. “We had more patience in the second half, and it showed.”

The victory sends Marquette into the round of 16 for the first time since 1979 and only the second time since 1977, when the Warriors won their only national championship.

“They shot 32 free throws to our nine,” said Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino, whose team was outscored at the foul line, 22-5. “It wasn’t because of the referees. It was because our inside attack was null and void against their big people.”

Tempo figured to be a key, and Miller’s ability to handle Kentucky’s full-court pressure, plus Marquette’s patience on offense, were the keys to the Warriors building a 39-24 halftime lead.

Kentucky went nearly seven minutes without a basket and Marquette took control with Key and Amal McCaskill scoring inside and Robb Logterman and Anthony Pieper contributing timely three-point baskets during a 23-7 surge that gave the Warriors a 30-16 lead.

“When I watched the films, I felt physically this was a team that would give us trouble,” Pitino said. “We couldn’t play man-to-man against them because we couldn’t contain Key. Nobody on our team was strong enough.”

Key scored 10 points in the first half, while McCaskill, playing 13 minutes because 7-footer Jim McIlvaine got in early foul trouble, made all four of his shots and had nine points, six rebounds, a block and a steal.

Kentucky rallied from a halftime deficit to win six times this season, but wasn’t quite equal to the task after Roney Eford made a three-point shot to give Marquette a 42-24 lead a minute into the second half.

Delk, who made nine of 19 shots, was the only Kentucky player to finish in double figures. Andre Riddick and Jeff Brassow each had eight points, while Travis Ford made only two of 11 shots and was held to six points before fouling out in the final minute.

“We didn’t have a bad shooting night,” Ford said. “We just took a lot of bad shots.”