Willie Cauley-Stein has career night in ugly but great UK win over Texas

An ugly, physical, erratic first half gave way to a big Kentucky run in the second half, and ultimately, top-ranked Wildcats just got their toughest win of the season so far.

UK remains unbeaten, now at 8-0, following that slog of a home win over No. 6 Texas on Friday night. The final: 63-51. A 12-point differential doesn't do justice to how Texas traded blows above Rupp Arena's rims, and how close the game felt for about 32 of the game's 40 minutes.

Despite foul trouble, Texas rebounded 44 percent of its misses and 68 percent of Kentucky's, winning the battle on the glass, and pretty handily. Kentucky shot 1 for 12 from 3-point range. But Texas, playing without its starting point guard (Isaiah Taylor is still out with a wrist injury), gave the ball away 22 times.

That's your difference.

With the loss, Texas is now Texas 0-8 all time against teams ranked No. 1.

Kentucky is now 90-4 under John Calipari at home.

Looking for a player to shine on? Junior Willie Cauley-Stein was absolutely vital for Kentucky. He was the team's best Friday night, becoming the first UK player this season to put up at least 20 points in a game. The 7-footer went for a career-best 21 points, 12 rebounds, five steals and three blocks. And he had three terrific alley-oop finishes.

Here's one of them.

Defense was always going to be the story here. Entering the game Texas was forcing opponents to shoot 31 percent from the field, third-best in the country. Kentucky was at 28 percent, tops in the land. There are no grand takeaways except to say the incredible defense from beginning to end for both teams reestablished that, even with the fouls plaguing the flow, both teams proved they can be the two best defensive teams in the country. (Kentucky is now and has been clearly the best.)

Fifty-one total fouls were called. It got egregious almost immediately.

Texas was able to keep it interesting, and close, after falling behind by 16 midway through the second half because of its defense. This after Kentucky started on a 10-0 run and held the Longhorns to one field goal in the first eight minutes of the second half.

And for Calipari, his team moves on and is probably better for it. No team can physically and vertically challenge the Wildcats like the Horns. I wish the game had been more liberally called, allowing the bigs to be bigs and the talent to shine through. Instead, it was a distilled version of a top-10 matchup, one that Kentucky deserved to win, regardless.

There's now little doubt Calipari would prefer to not have to see this team again come NCAA Tournament time. It wasn't an exposé for Kentucky, but an eye-level look against a team that's as close to an equal as UK will see all season.