RELATED STORIES: Column: UK’s ‘forgotten star’ force behind recent SEC dominance

Replay the game’s live blog

On the floor at Rupp Arena Wednesday night, the Cats and Auburn scraped, scrapped and struggled for every second of the 40-minute game. The tear-up contest took its toll on the players — even junior Jodie Meeks, who UK head coach Billy Gillispie has said “never tires,” told teammate junior Perry Stevenson he was beat after the game.

After the game, though, the talk wasn’t of human attributes like playing tired or hurt. Instead, the conversation surrounding Meeks and sophomore Patrick Patterson’s 21-point, 18-rebound night sounded more suited for National Geographic than it did for ESPN.

“That man is a beast,” Auburn senior Rasheem Barrett said of Patterson.

Patterson, playing with a hurt finger on his right hand, took control of the game early and never let go, despite a pesky Auburn team that fired 27 more shots on the basket than the Cats did.

The Tigers hung in, but they couldn’t withstand Patterson and Meeks’ barrage. In the end, the Cats — who had just six players log more than five minutes — held on for a 73-64 win.

“It was fantastic,” Gillispie said. “I was very, very concerned. It seemed like every time we substituted, they hit a shot. We decided to stick with our guys out there that defended the best for the longest period of time. For the most part, they really competed hard.”

For a while, competing hard didn’t suffocate the Tigers’ hopes at pulling off the road win. The first half featured 12 lead changes and six ties, and neither team gained a lead any larger than four points.

With UK (15-4, 4-0 Southeastern Conference) down a point with just seven seconds before the intermission, Patterson blocked an Auburn layup attempt, grabbed the rebound and ran three-quarters of the court before finding junior Ramon Harris streaking down the floor. Harris hot-potatoed the ball toward the basket; the ball went down as the buzzer went off, and just like that, the Cats turned a potential one-point halftime deficit into a one-point halftime advantage.

The Cats carried that momentum into the locker room and opened the second half on an 8-0 run. Auburn, on the shoudlers of junior DeWayne Reed, mustered one last stand. The Tigers (11-7, 1-3 SEC) even briefly regained the lead, a 51-48 advantage with 9:06 left.

But behind Meeks, Patterson and a strong Stevenson effort (13 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks), the Cats reeled off 12 straight points and never looked back.

“It was like a demon just took over,” Barrett said. “They just locked in and basically said they weren’t going to lose on their home floor.”

Meeks led the Cats with 31 points, but Patterson’s impact on the glass took his performance to a level on its own. Patterson’s 18 boards were just four less than the entire Auburn team.

“Pat is a beast, offensively and defensively,” Gillispie said.

Even with the finger taped up and in pain — it was iced down during the post-game news conference — Patterson’s performance earned beast-like status from Gillispie. Patterson said he “must be doing something right” to earn a compliment of that degree from the second-year coach.

Gillispie had a hard time putting it in any other terms.

“He’s, yeah … beast is a good word for him,” he said. “Man alive, he’s something else.”