[SLIDESHOW] Cats hold off Heels, win 68-66

John Wall got the rebound off a missed 3-pointer by North Carolina senior guard Marcus Ginyard. He raced down court with the ball, eyes looking in every direction like a running back trying to find the hole to get into the endzone. He did a quick cross over to fake the defender out and soared into the air for a two-handed slam dunk. The Rupp Arena record crowd of 24,468 fans in attendance broke out into euphoria.

Seven minutes and 43 seconds later, UK had scored 26 more points, and UNC had only scored two.

It was less than four minutes into the game and it only put UK to within five points of the visiting No. 10 Tar Heels. But Wall’s dunk became the catalyst to a 28-2 run that would give UK a 30-11 lead and propel the Cats to a 68-66 victory over the defending national champions.

“I thought (Wall) was terrific,” UK head coach John Calipari said.

The freshman from Raleigh, N.C. scored 13 points in the first half and dished out five assists. But just over one minute into the second half, Wall called a timeout and limped off the floor cramping all over his body.

As Wall limped off, as did the Cats’ lead. What was once a 19-point lead in the first half got trimmed down to a seven-point lead as the Tar Heels immediately went on an 8-0 run before Calipari called timeout.

Earlier in the season Calipari said he was happy that UK had played in some close games before and had played from behind. Now, after playing without their lead guard for just over seven minutes, Calipari said he was happy his team got the experience of playing in his absence.

“We had to play without John against a good team and we had to just figure it out,” Calipari said. “When another team makes a run at us, let’s see what we do. You have to understand how to play to finish it off.”

Standing in the Cats’ way of getting Wall back onto the court was a needle. Wall, who admittedly does not like needles at all, was in the locker room for awhile trying to get an IV to put extra fluids into his body. There were conflicting stories after the game as to why it took so long.

“They had to go to the crowd to get his mom so that she could talk to him and rub his head a little bit and they could put the IV in,” Calipari said. “That’s why it took so long.”

Wall disagreed.

“No, my mom was not back there,” Wall said. “They just had trouble finding a vein.”

With Wall not playing at 100 percent upon coming back into the game, fellow freshman guard Eric Bledsoe had to step up. Bledsoe, who had struggled with his shot and decision making for the majority of the game, told Calipari to put him back in as Calipari walked down the bench. With under two minutes to play, Bledsoe hit a layup to put the Cats back up by seven, and went five of six at the free throw line in the final 2:31.

“What Eric did is a lesson for all of them,” Calipari said. “It doesn’t matter if you turn it over and play awful, at the end of the day, you win.”

In what looked like a blowout early, a feisty UNC squad kept fighting and trimmed the lead to two with 32.4 seconds remaining. UNC head coach Roy Williams said he believed at halftime his team would be in it at the end of the game and if they could get over the hump with one possession that they would have a chance. Wall and the Cats said they too knew UNC wasn’t over yet.

“Basketball is based on a couple of runs,” Wall said. “… We knew the game wasn’t over because there was 20 minutes left and anybody can make a run and it sounded like they knew they were going to make a run back at us.”

Much was made prior to the game about the lack of recruitment on UNC’s part toward Wall, the No. 1 point guard prospect in the country. With a victory in hand over the Heels, Wall said the win was special, but it doesn’t necessarily mean UK is back on the national scene.

“(This win over UNC) doesn’t mean we’re back,” Wall said. “We still have a lot of work to do. When we get back into the gym, we have to keep going hard in practice and listen to what Coach Cal is saying. But it just shows that we keep maturing and we keep getting better.”