Kentucky brings an end to Big Red’s run

Reporting from Syracuse, N.Y.— Cornell’s contagious chant of “Let’s Go Red!” finally turned into “Let’s Go Home.”

It was Ivy League fantastic while it lasted — two NCAA tournament rounds — and at least going home Thursday meant only an hour’s drive back to Ithaca.

Cornell had the Carrier Dome shaking when it jumped to a 10-2 lead, but Kentucky then surged to a big lead and withstood a last charge for a 62-45 win in the East Regional semifinals.

Kentucky plays West Virginia on Saturday, with the winner advancing to the Final Four in Indianapolis.

Cornell scored its first two NCAA tournament wins last weekend by shooting 59% from the field, and 45% from three-point range, in double-digit wins over No. 5-seeded Temple and No. 4-seeded Wisconsin.

But this was a different night, and a different opponent. Cornell made 16 of 48 shots (33.3%) against Kentucky and five of 21 from three-point range (23.8%)

The Wildcats’ long arms and legs and extended defense certainly played a part, but Cornell also missed a lot of wide-open looks.

“It was probably a little bit of both,” said Big Red senior forward Ryan Wittman, who hit three of 10 shots. “Obviously, there were some pretty open ones like that. Sometimes you have games like that where they just don’t go down.”

Big Red, in effect, got hit by Blue Grass. Kentucky shrugged off Cornell’s opening surge by going on a 30-6 run and putting the Big Red in a 16-point halftime hole.

It was too much for Cornell (29-5) to overcome. Kentucky Coach John Calipari’s game plan wasn’t complicated: Play defense and put a hand in a shooter’s face.

“Our main goal was just to guard the three,” Kentucky guard Darius Miller said.

Cornell has eight seniors while Kentucky plays mostly freshmen and sophomores, but lack of experience didn’t hurt the Wildcats. Calipari’s only complaint was about his team getting complacent to start the second half.

“I thought we backed up and just tried to get out of the gym,” he said.

Kentucky needed to rebound and play tough defense because it wasn’t shooting well, either, making two of 16 three-pointers.

“We didn’t make any shots today and still did OK,” Calipari said.

Kentucky outrebounded Cornell, 41-28 and smothered a hot-shooting team that averaged 82.5 points in its two tournament wins.

Kentucky (35-2) led by 17 in the second half before Cornell got going. Louis Dale’s three-pointer with 5 minutes 38 seconds left cut the lead to six and got Cornell fans back in the game.

“Obviously, there was tremendous crowd support for us,” Wittman said. “It was extremely loud. When it got down to 40-34, we were just trying to feed off that energy … it just didn’t work out.”

Kentucky then scored three straight baskets to get the lead back to 12.

Wittman’s three-pointer with 3:40 left cut it to nine, but Kentucky held on.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com