The most intense rivalry in college basketball renewed Wednesday night.
It featured two top 10 programs and teams.
And two Hall of Fame coaches.
And, to the surprise of nobody, it was a one-possession game in the final minute with Kentucky and Louisville trading buckets and just generally providing the nation with a fun midweek matchup. Ultimately, Rick Pitino's Cardinals beat John Calipari's Wildcats 73-70. So Louisville moved to 11-1 while Kentucky fell to 10-2.
Here are five takeaways from the Game of the Week:
1. Louisville's defense was as good as advertised
The Cardinals entered this game with the nation's best defensive efficiency rating. They exited with the same thing after holding a Kentucky team that shot 54.1 percent against North Carolina (while scoring 103 points) to just 39.7 percent shooting and only 70 points. That's strong and encouraging because if you can beat a team as talented as Kentucky by shooting just 43.3 percent from the field like Louisville did, you can beat basically anybody.
2. Malik Monk struggled from start to finish
Monk entered the National Player of the Year race via a 47-point performance against North Carolina in which he made 8 of 12 3-point attempts. But the star freshman missed his first eight 3-pointers against Louisville, finished 1 of 9 from beyond the arc and produced only 16 points on 17 shots. Simply put, he was not good. And, at some point, I think Calipari will benefit from convincing Monk that it's not ideal for half of his field-goal attempts to come from 20 feet. The 6-foot-4 guard is an elite athlete with good handles. He should get to the rim more often than he does.
3. Kentucky was bad from 3-point range, per usual
The Wildcats took 22 3-pointers against Louisville and made only five. That's 22.7 percent. And they're now shooting just 33.2 percent from 3-point range this season, which ranks 233rd nationally. Want to know how many teams have ever won a national championship shooting this poorly from beyond the arc? Answer: Two. That's it. UConn in 2011 and Kansas in 1988. So Kentucky needs to get better from the perimeter or else history shows hanging another national championship banner in Rupp Arena is unlikely.
4. A Louisville player scored 20 for the first time all season
Incredibly, through 11 games, no Louisville player had scored 20 points in a game until this game. But Quintin Snider put an end to that by scoring 22 on 19 shots. Still, the Cardinals don't have a player averaging at least 12 points per game. They are the only top 10 team to which that sentence applies.
5. The Cardinals are really close to being undefeated
Louisville's lone loss is a 66-63 loss to Baylor in a game in which the Cardinals led by 22 points. In other words, Pitino is merely a crazy collapse from having an undefeated team. As it is, again, the Cardinals are 11-1; that's still really good. But it's worth noting that Louisville would likely be getting first-place votes if not for that weird outcome in the Battle 4 Atlantis.