[SLIDESHOW] Cats hold off Long Beach State in 86-73 win

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There was no celebration when the clock read zero. It wasn’t a milestone win. All it could be considered was a learning experience for a team still finding its way.

With freshmen John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins and junior Patrick Patterson on the bench for much of the first half with foul trouble, the Cats (13-0) stumbled to a 37-37 tie at halftime before pulling away to beat Long Beach State (6-6) 86-73.

“These are all lessons for this team,” UK head coach John Calipari said. “They’re so inexperienced. They’re so young, they don’t understand.”

The 49ers refused to go away despite a withering assault in the paint. UK drew 22 fouls in the game, including 13 in the second half, and went 22-of-30 at the charity stripe to finally pull away. The Cats spent most of the second half erasing the mistakes of their slow start, when emotions got the best of Cousins and freshman guard Eric Bledsoe.

Cousins finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds in just 13 minutes. He played only two minutes of the first half after being called for a foul, then being whistled for a technical arguing the call. He was not made available to speak to the media after the game.

“He’s growing up,” Calipari said. “He’s getting better. He knows that he’s never been held to a standard to which he’s been held now.”

Patterson finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds, while Wall had a game-high 19 points along with four steals. Most of their production came in the second half, as the Cats rotated wave after wave of players to wear down the opposition.

“Like I told Coach Cal, it’s kind of like a heavyweight fighter fighting a weight class lower,” Long Beach State head coach Dan Monson said. “They just pounded it inside in the second half and we just didn’t have an answer physically inside and we just couldn’t match up.”

Calipari had mentioned the 49ers as a team that scared him on the schedule. Caught between UK’s 2,000th win on Monday and Christmas on Friday, the timing of the game and the talent of the 49ers gave Calipari reason to worry.

“It was everything,” Calipari said. “If it was a different opponent, I would have been a little less anxious. But this was a team that can make shots, that was able to athletically stay up with us. We weren’t going to press them into submission.”

Senior forward Perry Stevenson speculated several players were ready to head home for a break, leading to UK’s slow start. Sophomore guard Darius Miller said he was just ready to rest for a few days.

“We just came out flat,” senior guard Ramon Harris said. “They came out with a lot of energy. They put us on our heels a little bit.”

Calipari said he would have liked the game to have come down to a last second shot to make sure the Cats learned their lessons – as long as it was a win. But against an opponent like the 49ers, he would take the scrappy win and the learning experience for a team still winning, and still finding their way.

 “The lessons learned are more about respecting each game enough to get yourself ready and if you’re playing poorly, it cannot affect the rest of our team,” Calipari said.