COLUMN: Emotional week capped with heart-breaking loss

This has been a tough week for UK, but it has been even tougher for one of its players.

Junior guard Kevin Galloway began his week Sunday with the news of the death of his grandfather. He flew home to California Tuesday and missed the Cats’ 77-59 loss at South Carolina Wednesday. After attending his grandfather’s funeral Galloway flew back to Lexington on Friday in time to participate in just one practice before Saturday’s game against the LSU Tigers.

“It’s been an emotional week,” Galloway said. “But my teammates were really good during the whole process.”

After participating in one practice this week, you’d have to imagine Galloway wasn’t planning on playing a huge role in the UK game plan against LSU. But then again, when Galloway and playing time were discussed this season the answer has been anything but predictable.

The junior guard didn’t even sniff the floor against Ole Miss before registering six minutes and two minutes against South Carolina and Mississippi State respectively.

That’s when things started to change. Galloway logged 25 minutes against Florida. After that game UK coach Billy Gillispie commented that he’d never been involved in a game where a player came off the bench and totally changed the game as Galloway had. But even the high praise from his coach didn’t get Galloway more than three minutes in the Cats’ next game at Arkansas.

His playing time spiked back to 30 minutes at Vanderbilt, but dropped to six minutes in the home victory over Tennessee.

You’d have to forgive Galloway if just the subject of playing time gave him a headache.

All this makes it even more improbable that after four first-half minutes in UK’s 73-70 loss to LSU Saturday, Galloway was leading the Cats to start the second half.

After a season of point guard questions revolving around Michael Porter and DeAndre Liggins, neither player left the bench in the second half against LSU. This was Galloway’s show.

“I just tried to play hard in practice,” Galloway said of his one opportunity to impress Gillispie before the game.

Impress Galloway did. With Galloway and Miller in the lineup to go with starters Ramon Harris, Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson the Cats rallied from an eight-point halftime deficit to take the lead. When Galloway finally returned to the bench with 6:35 left in the game, the Cats had gone on a 30-20 run.

“He [Galloway] played good, but I thought it was the entire group that played in the second half, other than one guy,” said Gillispie.

Just who that one guy was up for debate, but Gillispie referred to his critical substitution error from the lineup that started the second half as the reason UK lost.

“That’s what got us in the position we were in, and that’s what got us in the end,” Gillispie said.

The theatrics for Galloway weren’t over. With 34.7 left in the game he had two free throw attempts to pull UK within two. He made the first, but badly missed the second. Luckily for him, Patterson gathered the rebound and kicked to an open Miller for a game-tying three.

“I was just relieved,” Galloway said.

But on LSU’s last possession Galloway’s mistake on a defensive switch left Tasmin Mitchell open for the game-winning three.

“I honestly just blanked out and went into a defensive zone, I wanted to shut my man down,” Galloway said.

Galloway’s defensive mistake may have left the door open for the game-winning shot, but he knew how the second-half lineup brought UK back into the game.

“Energy. Energy and hustle,” Galloway said. “I thought we fought a little more, I thought we wanted it a little more.”

After the week he’d been through, it’s amazing Galloway had any energy left. His lasting memory from the game will undoubtedly be the missed defensive switch, but one play didn’t diminish the importantce of returning from the week he’d experienced.

After explaining how his teammates held him up during his difficult time, Galloway was asked if was nice to know he had two families. He had a simple answer.

“Yeah, it is.”

RELATED STORIES: Tigers escape amid Cats’ miscues

Replay the game’s live blog