The Battle of the Bluegrass took place Saturday night at Rupp Arena and it was a hard-fought edition of the annual matchup. In the end, Kentucky prevailed with a 93-85 victory. Lamont Butler, who missed the last two games with Kentucky, was instrumental. On Saturday he celebrated a brilliant comeback and scored 33 points. Kentucky led the game from the start, but it never felt like it was out of control for Louisville as they refused to go away throughout the game. Kentucky took an early 19-5 lead with all three-point attempts failing early. However, Louisville got it together and responded by forcing a few turnovers to go close. The Cardinals cut Kentucky’s lead by a few points to four points several times late in the first half, but the Wildcats were able to score on the final possession of the first half and went into the locker room with a 46-40 lead. In the second half, Kentucky came out strong and increased their lead. After 16 minutes, the Cards led 59-49 before the Cards fought back again. After 14 minutes they reduced the lead to three. Kentucky fought off the comeback and maintained a 10-point lead at 71-61 just before the 10-minute mark. This became a constant theme as the cats got up at 10am and the cards responded every time. It took Kentucky until the seven-minute mark to get back to 77-67. Koby Brea missed a three-pointer at 5:17 that would have restored the 10-point lead, but there was a fight at the other end. You could see Cardinals coaches Mark Pope and Pat Kelsey pulling their players away from each other. After a foul by Kentucky’s Brandon Garrison, Garrison ended up deep on the Cards’ bench, but staff and teammates were able to separate everyone before a heated fight ensued. From then on, Louisville refused to go away and stayed close to the Cats. Otega Oweh stole the ball at 1:51 and punched it into the goal on the other side just as UofL was close. A foul by Jaxon Robinson on defense with less than a minute left caused him to miss a three-point attempt by Louisville’s Chucky Hepburn. Oweh escaped with the ball and converted a free throw after being fouled and made his basket. From there, Louisville had no choice but to try to score while getting Kentucky to the free throw line to try to extend the game. That wasn’t enough, however, as Kentucky took the honors. By the Numbers In addition to Butler’s great performance, Brea, Robinson, Oweh and Andrew Carr also scored in double figures. Carr also led the Cats with nine rebounds. Hepburn and Terrence Edwards, Jr. led the Cards with 26 and 25 points, respectively. Noah Waterman had 12 rebounds. The Cards haven’t beaten Kentucky at Rupp Arena since January 2008. Kentucky now leads the all-time series 40-17. What’s next? Kentucky improves to 10-1 and gets a week off before heading to Madison Square Garden to play Ohio State on Saturday, December 21st. The game starts at 5:30 p.m. Louisville falls to 6-5. They also have a week off before traveling to play Florida State on Saturday, December 21st. The game starts at 2 p.m