Kentucky wins another title

Associated Press Arizona Daily Wildcat Kentucky coach Tubby Smith, accompanied by his wife Donna (left), holds the NCAA Final Four championship trophy overhead as he celebrates with his Wildcats after their 78-69 win over Utah in the Alamodome in San Antonio last night.

Kentucky capped a truly maddening March with an unprecedented second-half rally, beating Utah 78-69 last night to win its second NCAA Championship in three years. The Wildcats did it this time with a new coach and without stars in their lineup.

Kentucky overcame the largest halftime deficit - 10 points - in a championship game with its third straight rally of the tournament to win its seventh national title.

"We're comeback kids," Kentucky head coach Tubby Smith said. "These kids have done it all."

With Smith working the sidelines instead of Rick Pitino and with former stars Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer and Derek Anderson in the NBA, Kentucky moved one trophy closer to UCLA's record total of 11.

It was the third straight year the Wildcats were in the championship game - they lost to Arizona in overtime last season - and the third straight year they ended Utah's season in the NCAA Tournament.

Utah's impressive run to what would have been the school's second title and first since 1944 ended because Kentucky did what No. 1 seeds Arizona and North Carolina couldn't do against the Utes - shoot well.

Just as they had in the South Regional final against Duke and again in the national semifinals against Stanford, the Wildcats fell behind in the first half, trailing 41-31 at halftime. The deficit was as many as 12 points in the opening minutes of the second half before Kentucky started shooting well, something Utah's last two opponents couldn't do.

"We've come back all year long," Wildcats' guard Cameron Mills said. "Every time we fell behind, we never quit."

The Utes, the second-best defensive team in the country this season, had held its five tournament opponents to 39 percent shooting and an average of 62.5 points.

Kentucky, which finished 29 for 57 from the field (51 percent), chipped away at the lead by scoring on seven of 10 possessions. The Wildcats took the lead for the first time since early in the first half at 60-58 with 7:16 to play on a breakaway dunk by Jeff Sheppard after he stole the ball from Hanno Mottola.

Utah got the lead back at 62-60 on a driving layup by Andre Miller with 6:16 left and even extended it by two more points when Miller fed Alex Jensen for a layup 23 seconds later.

But a three-pointer by Mills, Kentucky's fifth of the game - all in the second half - and a driving jumper by Sheppard with 4:53 left gave the Wildcats the lead for good.

"I probably should have cultivated the bench more," Utah coach Rick Majerus said. "Tonight, fatigue was the primary factor. But credit Kentucky with a fine effort by the bench in the second half. These Kentucky guys are great athletes."

Sheppard's jumper was Kentucky's last field goal until the a dunk by Wayne Turner with 12 seconds to play. The Wildcats went 11 for 12 from the free-throw line down the stretch and Utah's solid offensive game went to pieces as it scored on just two of its last 10 possessions.

Scott Padgett led the Wildcats with 17 points, while Sheppard had 16.

Miller led the Utes with 16 points, while Mottola and Michael Doleac each had 15 and Jensen 14.

As the trophy was presented by Selection Committee chairman C.M. Newton, who also happens to be the athletic director at Kentucky and the man who picked Smith to succeed Pitino, the crowd chanted "Tubby, Tubby."

It seemed implausible that any coach could be more popular in Kentucky than Pitino had been in leading the program back from one of its lowest points following probation. But Smith may have topped him in the one year since Pitino left to coach the Boston Celtics.

Kentucky is now 7-3 in NCAA Championship games, but its record over Utah in the last three seasons is 3-0 with a second-round win two years ago and a regional semifinal victory last season.

Utah had beaten defending national champion Arizona in the West Regional final in a 25-point laugher. The Utes had to hang on to beat North Carolina in the Final Four, but they couldn't do it against Kentucky as the Wildcats wore down the nation's top rebounding team.

Utah finished with a 39-24 advantage on the boards, but in the later possessions Kentucky didn't miss many shots.

In the first half, Utah went on a 10-0 run that Jensen started and ended with layups off long passes to take a 34-23 lead. Kentucky did get within 37-31, but the Utes scored the final four points of the half for the 10-point lead.