CLEVELAND, Ohio - Bryn Forbes scored a game-high 22 points and Cleveland State led for a majority of the first 37 minutes before Kentucky pulled away late for a 68-61 victory in Rupp Arena as part of the Keightley Classic on Monday night.
The Vikings fell to 3-3 this year, while UK improved to 5-1.
Forbes hit three three-pointers and all 11 of his free throws en route to his fourth 20-point game of the season.
Trey Lewis, making his first start at CSU for Charlie Lee who was injured, finished with 15 points and four assists, while Sebastian Douglas tallied 13 points and six rebounds.
Julius Randle had a double-double of 15 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Wildcats.
UK was aided by a 27-of-35 performance at the free throw line, while CSU was 14-of-15.
The Wildcats took an early 4-2 lead, but a three-pointer by Forbes started a 15-5 run that helped CSU open up an eight point lead (17-9) seven minutes in. The Vikings held the lead for the next eight minutes before a pair of UK free throws gave the Wildcats a 23-22 lead with 6:27 left.
CSU held UK without a field goal for close to seven minutes during the span, but the Wildcats took advantage of their trips to the line to regain the lead.
The Vikings trailed by three with just under four minutes left in the half, but a Douglas steal and layup and five straight free throws from Forbes, the final three coming after he was fouled on a three-pointer, gave CSU a 31-27 halftime lead.
It maked the fifth straight halftime lead for CSU this year.
A 13-6 spurt to open the second half allowed the Vikings to open up their biggest advantage of the night (44-33) with 14:17 left on a Lewis layup. Five straight from UK brought them within six, but a deep Lewis three pushed CSU's lead back to nine with 11 minutes left.
The Wildcats responded once again, scoring six straight to get back within three, but CSU answered again with a circus shot in the lane by Lewis, a Douglas three-pointer and two free throws from Forbes to extend the lead back to 10 points (54-44) with 7:41 to play.
The Wildcats scored the next 12 to regain the lead, but Forbes answered with a three-pointer on the other end as CSU went up, 57-56 with three minutes to play.
However, UK closed the game on a 12-4 spurt to seal the game.
CSU is back in action on Saturday (Nov. 30) when the Vikings host Ball State at 7:00 p.m. in the Wolstein Center.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Cleveland State Head Coach Gary Waters
Opening Statement …
"Before I speak, I always give honor to God, he's first in my life. I am going to say this to you, I thought Kentucky did a great job fighting back. I whispered into (John) Calipari's ear 'hey, you need this more than I need it.' They came back, and I thought they fought hard to come back. I felt bad for our kids because I thought they put themselves in a position to win a game. We kind of faltered at the end if I want to call it that, that's something that we need to get better at. I asked them in the locker room what happened at the end, and they came up with all different kinds of answers. I said one thing happened, we were undisciplined at the end. You have to be disciplined in those closing moments and execute, because when you are in an environment like this, and this is a pretty good environment, even this press conference, we don't have this many people at our press conferences. I'm excited for our guys because they know that they have the potential to be a pretty good team this year, and we are going to continue to work hard and continue to compete."
On Kentucky's freshman battling back for the win …
"Well, you know, Kentucky is the youngest team in the country right? Last year we were the youngest team in the country, so what you see out there is just a bunch of sophomores trying to do what freshman completed there. We are both going to make some mistakes but I give Kentucky credit, they never quit, never stopped fighting. I think that's what you get when you are at home, your fans help you through this thing. They have great fans and they helped lift them up when they are down."
On the roll of 3-point shots in their game plan …
"Well we came in realizing they weren't a great 3-point shooting team. We know that (James) Yacoung can shoot the ball and we tried to stay with him as much as possible. He literally hit a big bucket, he hit that big 3, and then I think (Julius) Randle hit another that we didn't anticipate. You can only go to that well so many times, eventually somebody is going to hit a shot, and I thought that went well. You know what I thought gave them the advantage? It wasn't the missing free throws or anything like that, what I thought gave them the advantage was on the glass. I thought they got some rebounds that were key down the stretch, they turned it around. As I sit here and look, they got 18 offensive rebounds. They may be the best offensive rebounding team in the country. A close friend of mine, Tom Izzo, he works hard on rebounding the basketball, that's one of his identities. I'm telling you, this team rebounds as good or better than Michigan State I thought when I watched them. It's hard to keep them off it, and it's more than one."
On the play of Andrew Harrison down the stretch …
"I thought he did a good job. He got his team into what they needed to get. They realized they weren't hitting from the outside, so they were trying to get to the basket. One of our plans coming into this game was to tighten it in on the inside and make them kick it out. Down the stretch we did not do that as well."
Cleveland State Student-Athlete
#3, Trey Lewis, G
On if he ever thought that Cleveland State had the game won …
"The whole game. From the beginning of the game. We're Cleveland State, and we came in with the mentality that we can play with anyone in the country. We really believed we were going to win this game, and it showed out there. But, down the stretch, we were just a little bit undisciplined."
On what the defensive gameplan was …
"Our gameplan was to stay on the inside of them and make them take outside-contested shots."
On being right with UK on rebounding …
"Rebounding is about heart. That's what it comes down to. It's not necessarily about size like everybody thinks. It's about heart, it's about boxing out, it's about going after the ball and gang rebounding. (The rebounding total) showed we were right there rebounding with them. Nobody thought we would be in the game, but rebounding is about heart. A lot of times we kept them to one-and-done, up until the end."
On what he thought about being up 10 with seven minutes to go …
"I mean, we were in control of the game, but down the stretch we let the adversity get to us and we let the environment get to us. This is a learning experience for our team, so what we took out of it is that we are going to grow from being in this situation. You've got to go through these situations to get better and go where we want to go to."
