5. at #10 Louisville 73, #6 Kentucky 70 (December 21, 2016)
For starters, we turn our attention back two seasons ago. Both of these were top ten teams who had gotten off to solid starts for highly anticipated seasons. Louisville boasted a solid win over Purdue and a second place finish in the Battle 4 Atlantis (losing by 3 points to Baylor in the title game). Kentucky’s sole loss to that point had come to a potent UCLA squad, with an impressive win over Michigan State already on their resume. The advantage was with the Cardinals, who hosted this game, and they managed to take advantage.
This was a great, competitive game that went back and forth all night long, with the largest lead being Louisville’s 7-point advantage in the first half. Kentucky grabbed a 40-39 halftime lead as both teams shot well early on. The second half was more of a defensive struggle, with Louisville shooting much better from the 3 (42.9% for the game to 22.7% for Kentucky). Malik Monk hit a key 3 for the Wildcats with 11 seconds left to pull them within one, but couldn’t hit another 3 to tie the game at the buzzer. De’Aaron Fox paced the Wildcats with 21 points but Louisville’s Quentin Snider one-upped him with 22 of his own. Down the stretch, Louisville made enough free throws (15-20) and held on in an impressive home win.
Louisville was solid down the stretch in what would be Rick Pitino’s final year, but the season ended in a revenge loss to Michigan in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. They were knocked out by the team they had beaten for the title four years earlier. Unsurprisingly, Kentucky bounced back from this early season challenge. Aside from a rough stretch in late January (3 losses in 4 games, including two ranked foes), they won all of their games until March, riding an 11-game winning streak into the Tourney before being upended by eventual champion North Carolina.