Stanford Is One-Upped

The Kentucky Wildcats picked up where they left off last season, beating taller, brawnier and supposedly smarter Stanford, 86-85, in an overtime thriller Saturday to advance to the NCAA championship game for the third consecutive year.

Kentucky got the job done this time with the 27-point shooting of Jeff Sheppard and moved within one victory of its seventh national title.

Champions two years ago and runners-up to Arizona last year under Rick Pitino, the Wildcats’ return to the title game came with a team that Tubby Smith inherited but shaped into his own.

More than a collection of thoroughbreds racing up and down the court, this Kentucky squad coped cleverly with Stanford and overcame the absence of a superstar by playing with slick teamwork.

Down by as many as 10 points in the second half, Kentucky stepped up the defensive pressure with Smith screaming on the sideline and rode the outside shooting of Sheppard and the inside muscle of Nazr Mohammed to victory.

“We kept our composure throughout and hung in there when things weren’t going well for us,” said Smith, the first black basketball coach at a school where Adolph Rupp built an all-white dynasty with 876 wins and four NCAA titles.

Sheppard scored six of his points in overtime, and Mohammed bounced back from foul trouble and a scoreless first half to score 18 points.

Arthur Lee, the hero of Stanford’s victory over Rhode Island in the Midwest Regional final, led the Cardinal with 26 points, and backcourt mate Kris Weems scored 17. Lee made five of eight three-pointers and did a superb job of controlling the tempo for the Cardinal.

Kentucky (34-4) trailed most of the game but scored the first five points in overtime, all by Mohammed and Sheppard, to jump to a 78-73 lead. Stanford never recovered.

“This team has gone through a lot this year,” Sheppard said. “It’s been fun to pull together. We are like a family, like brothers out there.”

In its first Final Four since winning the title in 1942, Stanford (30-5) got within a point three times down the stretch but saw its chance of an upset fade when Peter Sauer missed a long heave at the buzzer.

Stanford turned the ball over only twice in the first half, but Kentucky’s pressure in the second half and overtime forced the Cardinal to make 13 turnovers.

Weems, Stanford’s leading scorer most of the season but averaging only five points in the tournament going into this game, had the green light to keep shooting and sank three of 11 shots, all three-pointers, in the first half. But he was only six for 23 overall.

“I don’t know what more I could ask of these kids,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery said. “It was an unbelievable season. If anybody anywhere had any doubts about this team, they were answered by these kids.

“We made some critical errors. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was youth. But we answered the call every time we were down.”

Stanford took a 13-3 lead in the first five minutes of the game, and led throughout the half despite one five-minute stretch when it couldn’t get off a shot and Kentucky came back to 18-17.

Staying in a man-to-man defense and keeping Kentucky’s fast break contained with good position under the boards, Stanford rode three-pointers by Weems and Lee for a 37-32 halftime lead.

Mohammed picked up two fouls in the first few minutes, sat out most of the rest of the first half, and went scoreless until making three inside shots in a row early in the second half.

But Stanford kept answering Kentucky’s inside shooting with three-pointers, including one by Sauer that gave the Cardinal its biggest lead of the second half, 46-36, and another by Lee that made it 49-40.

The Wildcats fought back to 49-48 on a basket by Mohammed, a three-pointer by Allen Edwards and a steal, drive and foul shot by Sheppard.

Kentucky stayed close but couldn’t grab the lead until Scott Padgett sank two free throws to put the Wildcats ahead for the first time, 54-53, with 10:04 left.

A 10-foot hook by Mohammed made it 56-53, but Stanford regained the lead with two baskets before a pair of free throws by Mohammed, on Tim Young’s fourth foul, put Kentucky ahead again with 7:23 to go.

With the 7-foot-1 Young going to the bench, Stanford lost a big presence in the middle who had accounted for 10 points and seven rebounds.

That meant Mark Madsen had to step up even more, and he responded with an offensive rebound, layup and free throw that put Stanford ahead once more, 68-66, with 3:04 left in regulation.

Kentucky made it 72-68 on two three-pointers by Sheppard, but another offensive rebound and layup by Madsen, and a three-pointer by Lee with 26 seconds left after a Kentucky free throw tied the score, 73-73.

With three seconds to go in regulation, Turner missed a short bank, and Madsen rebounded to give Stanford a chance to win the game with 1.1 seconds left. But a 40-foot heave by Weems under pressure fell well short and the game went into overtime.