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Calipari, Wildcats Find New March Madness Low in Loss to St. Peter’s

Saint Peter’s pulled off the biggest win in school history, stunning No. 2 seed Kentucky 85–79 in overtime.

Saint Peter’s acted like it had been there before.

After the 15th-seeded Peacocks bounced storied from the Tournament on Thursday night, they calmly exchanged handshakes with the Wildcats before heading over to the opposite sideline to celebrate with a small contingent of true believers.

The tiny Jesuit school from Jersey City, New Jersey, got 27 points from Daryl Banks III as it took down basketball royalty, beating second-seeded Kentucky 85-79 in overtime and sending countless brackets into the digital wastebasket.

”It was an amazing feeling,” Banks said. ”You grow up you watching March Madness, the tournament, so to let that sink in – knowing the game was over – it felt really good.”

The Peacocks became the 10th No. 15 seed to win a first-round game since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 and handed Kentucky its first opening-round loss under coach John Calipari.

Read full article here.

Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter’s Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.

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On This Day in UK Basketball History

On March 24, 1947, before a Madison Square Garden record crowd of 18,493, Wat Misaka held Ralph Beard to two points and Utah ended the Wildcats’ bid for back-to-back NIT Championships.

 

On March 24, 1951, No. 1 Kentucky defeated No. 5 Illinois in the 1951 NCAA Final Four.  After UK standouts Bill Spivey and Cliff Hagan fouled out, Shelby Linville, a 6-foot-5 junior, scored Kentucky’s final six points, including the game-winning basket on a layup with 12 seconds left before 16,425 in the old Madison Square Garden in New York City.

 

On March 24, 2017, in a highly anticipated matchup with UCLA, which beat the Wildcats in the regular season in Rupp Arena, freshman point guard De’Aaron Fox scores an NCAA Tournament freshman record 39 points to propel UK to the Elite Eight.

 

Wildcats Born on This Date

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