The Kentucky Wildcats fell short in their season opener against the Duke Blue Devils on Tuesday night in a 79-71 loss in the Champions Classic.
This was a back-and-forth game most of the night, but it was the Blue Devils that continued to hold the slight edge as they took a 39-35 lead into halftime.
The Cats had an outstanding start to the second half as back-to-back layups by Oscar Tshiebwe followed by a big three from Keion Brooks gave Kentucky a 42-41 lead.
With Kentucky leading 46-45, a stretch of roughly eight minutes came that saw Duke go from down 1 to up 15 as they led it 69-54 with 9:22 left in the game.