Kentucky didn't lose a game at Rupp Arena all season, and the Wildcats are looking just as strong in their home away from home, the Georgia Dome.
After going 15-0 in Lexington but 4-7 in true road games this season, Kentucky won for the second time in two days in the supposedly neutral Dome by routing Alabama 72-58 in the SEC tournament semifinals Saturday afternoon.
The Wildcats played as if they were in Rupp, perhaps because it looked and sounded as if they were, with at least 90 percent of the crowd cheering for them.
The win lifted Kentucky's all-time record in the Georgia Dome to 21-5 in SEC tournament, NCAA tournament and regular-season games. Kentucky has won four previous SEC tournament championships in the Dome and will play for a fifth there at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Kentucky (24-8 this season, including 5-1 on neutral courts) played a superb game Saturday. The Wildcats led by as many as 26 points, shot 50 percent from the field and 45 percent from 3-point range against the SEC's top defensive team, committed just seven turnovers and guarded well.
"That's what I'm looking for from my team," Kentucky coach John Calipari said of the performance.
Kentucky lost to Alabama 68-66 during the regular season, trailing by 20 points early in the second half of that game. "They smashed us," Calipari said of the earlier meeting. But that game was in Tuscaloosa.
In Atlanta on Saturday, the Wildcats did the smashing.
Kentucky led by 16 at halftime, and Calipari quickly called timeout after Alabama cut the margin to 12 by scoring the first four points of the second half.
"We didn't want to let up," Kentucky's DeAndre Liggins said. "So Coach called timeout and got everybody rejuvenated."
Kentucky went on a 16-5 run, capped by a thunderous Terrence Jones dunk, to take a 53-30 lead with 13 ½ minutes remaining. The Wildcats' largest lead was 64-38 with 6:27 to play.
The game's final 90 seconds brought the only bad news for the Cats. Two players, Liggins and Doron Lamb, twisted their left ankles. Calipari said afterward that Lamb, who led Kentucky with 15 points Saturday, "could be pretty doubtful" for Sunday's championship game, although Lamb said he will play.
As for why key players were in the game so late with the lead hovering in the high teens, Calipari said it was because Alabama was still pressing and trapping.
"If they had stopped pressing, I would have subbed with three minutes to go," Calipari said. "Obviously, I would have rather had all of them out. But I'm trying to win that game."
Lamb was one of five Kentucky players to score in double figures. Liggins and Josh Harrellson had 14 apiece, Brandon Knight 12 and Darius Miller 10. Alabama's Tony Mitchell had a game-high 16.
Kentucky's 50-percent shooting came against an Alabama team that previously was holding opponents to 38 percent, the third best percentage in the nation.
The loss left the Crimson Tide in an extremely vulnerable position on the NCAA tournament bubble. Despite Friday's victory over Georgia, Alabama entered Saturday's game No. 78 in the RPI. The selection committee has never chosen an at-large team with an RPI so low.
"You know what, I'm more focused on our team, and I think we have had a very good year," Alabama coach Anthony Grant said. "Whatever happens will happen. But that can't diminish what these guys were able to accomplish during the course of the season in my mind."
Calipari said the selection committee should not hold Saturday's game against the Crimson Tide (21-11).
"We would have smacked anybody that we played today, the way we shot the ball," Calipari said. "It wasn't just Alabama. We would have beaten just about anybody."
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