Milwaukee
After six long years, the Kentucky Wildcats are headed back to the Sweet 16.
And it happened in Mark Pope’s first season on the job.
The Cats defeated Illinois 84-75 at the Fiserv Forum on Sunday night, silencing a Milwaukee crowd that consisted mostly of Illini fans and punching UK’s ticket to the second week of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
Two nights earlier, Pope earned his first March Madness victory as a head coach. On Sunday, the former Kentucky player got his second.
Koby Brea was the offensive star of the night for the Wildcats.
Brea finished with 23 points. He made five consecutive shots during one stretch in the second half — scoring eight points in a span of 59 seconds in the middle of that run — and was the key cog in an offensive onslaught for Kentucky out of halftime.
The Cats made their first 10 2-point attempts in the second half. They opened the period on a 10-0 run, turning a 37-32 lead at the break into a 47-32 advantage before the first TV timeout of the half. UK largely controlled the game from there. The Cats led by as many as 16 in the second half. Illinois narrowed the score to 74-68 with about 90 seconds left, but Kentucky held on at the end.
Lamont Butler, who was scoreless in Kentucky’s win over Troy on Friday night, finished with 14 points and was a menace defensively. He also had five assists. Otega Oweh, who missed most of the first half with foul trouble, scored the opening basket of the second half and finished with 15 points, hitting three free throws in the final 19 seconds to pad Kentucky’s lead.
Amari Williams had eight points, 10 rebounds, six assists and three blocks.
The Wildcats had 14 steals as a team, tying their season high. They outscored Illinois 26-8 in points off turnovers.
Kentucky guard Lamont Butler (1) reacts during a second-round NCAA Tournament game at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Sunday. Ryan C. Hermens [email protected]
Kentucky, a team known for its offense all season long, set a smothering defensive tone from the beginning of the game.
About 90 seconds in, Butler punched the ball away out of the hands of Illinois point guard Kasparas Jakucionis and took it the other way, eventually finding Brea for a layup and the first two points of the night. The Cats ended up with four steals in the first 5:12 of the game. They had eight steals before the under-8 timeout in the first half.
Three of those early steals belonged to Collin Chandler, who was the first Kentucky player off the bench and hit a 3-pointer on his first offensive possession on the court. Chandler scored nine points in a span of less than two minutes Friday night to help ignite a 16-0 run and put Troy away in the first round of the tournament.
Chandler’s shot Sunday night came amid a 9-0 run for the Cats, who trailed 5-4 at the beginning of it — their only deficit of the game — and led 13-4 by the end. Kentucky’s lead ballooned to as many as 12 points in the first half before the Illini settled down on offense. UK’s shooting also went cold toward the end of the half. They missed six of seven shots during one skid late in the first half but still led 37-32 at the break.
Butler had 10 points in the first half against Illinois, including a pair of 3-pointers. UK also played the final 12:31 of the first half without its leading scorer, Oweh, who sat the rest of the period with two fouls.
The Wildcats (24-11) have lost just one game this season while leading at halftime: an 82-78 defeat at Texas, where Kentucky was up 41-37 at the break.
The Illini (22-13) didn’t commit a turnover in the final 8:49 of the first half, but Brea came up with a steal on Illinois’ first possession after halftime, leading to a bucket from Oweh at the other end. That started off a 10-0 run out of the break for the Wildcats, who led 47-32 at the end of it.
Despite being the “better” seeded team in the matchup, the 3-seeded Wildcats were a 2.5-point underdog to the 6-seeded Illini at tipoff. This was the 12th game in which UK wasn’t the favorite this season. The Cats are now 7-5 in those games.
Kentucky will now get a rematch with 2-seeded Tennessee — a team that UK has already defeated twice this season, both times as an underdog — in the Sweet 16 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Friday night. This will be the 242nd all-time meeting between the Cats and the Vols but the first in the NCAA Tournament.
This story was originally published March 23, 2025 at 7:47 PM.
