Near the top of the key, Baylor guard Deuce Bello shook free of his man and roared down the lane, cocking the ball behind his head for a dunk. In an instant, Kentucky forward Terrence Jones met Bello at the rim.
"I saw him," Bello said. "I just tried to finish through him."
Bello's shot met an ignominious end, getting rejected forcefully by Jones. The block was one of nine for Kentucky, the most shots the Bears have had blocked all season. For the Wildcats, the door to their 15th Final Four appearance was opened by fierce defensive play that shook Baylor off its moorings.
"They're a great defensive team," Baylor guard Brady Heslip said. "They've got shot blockers, athletes, long guys, and they just make it tough on you."
After falling behind 10-5, Kentucky coach John Calipari called timeout.
"I told them, we'll do it with defense," he said. "Just get out there and guard people and make easy plays."
After that, the Wildcats zapped the Bears with separate first-half runs of 16-0 and 15-2 that catapulted Kentucky from a 10-5 deficit with 16:17 to go to a 38-17 advantage in about 12 ½ minutes.
In that span, Baylor shot 3-for-16 from the field, including Jones' block of Bello, with six turnovers. The Bears had their pockets picked, their shots blocked and altered and their moxie deflated. When Baylor forward Quincy Acy used a pick-and-roll to free himself for an open dunk for the Bears' eighth and final field goal of the first half, it was almost jarring that the Wildcats had permitted a free look at the basket. Kentucky led 42-22 at halftime.
Said Jones, "I think we made it pretty tough for ‘em on every shot. Even the shots they did make, there was a hand up or two people on somebody."
The collection of Bears misses and turnovers gave the Wildcats all the opening they needed to strafe Baylor with their transition game. Forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist scored 17 points in the first half alone.
Kentucky's defensive flogging doesn't rate as much of a surprise. Through Saturday's games, the Wildcats ranked first in the country in field-goal percentage defense (37.5 percent) and blocked shots (8.6 per game). Still, Jones said he thought the first half was the Wildcats' best defensive effort of the season.
"This is exactly how we want to play," he said, "being aggressive and just going at people fast pace."
Center Anthony Davis finished with 18 points, 11 rebounds and six blocks. The nation's leading shot blocker affected more shots than that, regardless of whether he was actually challenging or not. The Bears missed several shots from all over the floor that they normally make. You could credit the lurking specter of Davis' 6-foot-10 frame for some of it.
"You've always got to be aware of a tough shot blocker," Baylor forward Anthony Jones said. "He can come out of anywhere to block your shot."
Heslip, the long-range sniper who had torched Colorado for 27 points in the third round and averaged 7.4 field-goal attempts per game, got free for just two shots in 26 minutes, making one 3-pointer. Guards Doron Lamb, Darius Miller and Marquis Teague took shifts marking Heslip, hounding him through screens and staying in front of him.
The plan was "Don't leave him," Miller said. "We had a lot of respect for his jump shot, so we just tried to keep a hand up at all times."
The Wildcats now face Louisville in the Final Four in New Orleans, a rematch of Kentucky's 69-62 win over the Cardinals New Year's Eve in Lexington. The Cardinals will bring some defense themselves, ranking fourth in the nation in defensive field-goal percentage (38.0 percent) and seventh in steals (8.9 per game).
"Let's just go be as good as we can be as a team," Calipari said. "If that's not good enough, then the season ends there."
If they can defend like they did Sunday, it's hard to imagine that happening.
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