Kentucky vs. Louisville: Score and Twitter Reaction from 2014 Regular Season

The top-ranked Kentucky Wildcats overcame poor shooting, a plethora of turnovers and a raucous environment to beat No. 4 Louisville 58-50 at the KFC Yum! Center Saturday afternoon.

Like the Wildcats have become known to do, they put the defensive clamps on Rick Pitino's team. The Cardinals shot a lowly 25.9 percent (15-of-58) from the field, generating just one team assist and allowing Kentucky to overcome its second-lowest point total of the season.

Louisville (11-1) matched Kentucky's (13-0) defensive effort, making for a slugfest that stayed within a few possessions. But it was the Wildcats—not the Cardinals—that would hit the clutch shots when things got tight.

Team	1	2	Final
Kentucky	22	36	58
Louisville	18	32	50

Tyler Ulis scored a team-high 14 points off the bench for Kentucky, overcoming poor shooting performances from the Wildcats guards. A wide-scale rebounding effort helped to hold off Louisville forward Montrezl Harrell, who finished with nine points and eight rebounds but was largely held in check by Kentucky's bigs.

Terry Rozier led Louisville with 15 points, but starting guards Rozier and Chris Jones combined to go just 8-of-33 for the game.

To make matters worse for the packed Louisville house, the hundreds of Kentucky fans in attendance had the last laugh, per Yahoo Sports' Pat Forde:

It's been known for many months that Saturday would bring perhaps the best regular-season game of 2014-15. Along with obvious in-state ties and the rematch of last year's Sweet 16 battle, Kentucky and Louisville came in as two of the eight unbeatens in college basketball.

But Kentucky is the one generating talk of an undefeated season after its impressive start, and head coach John Calipari noted that Saturday should be telling for his team.

"We need somebody to punch us in the face," Calipari told ESPN.com's Myron Medcalf. "Now let's see if we can still have fun. Can we enjoy this? If we're a world-class team, you enjoy this even if they're coming after you. It's going to be a tough game for us. We know that."

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There wasn't any face-punching between Kentucky and Louisville, but the physicality—especially on defense—trumped that of almost any other game from the onset.

The Wildcats flexed their defensive muscle early. After Louisville canned its first two looks, seven straight misses followed.

But a 5-of-16 start for Kentucky kept the Cats from clawing too far ahead. Due in part to 10 turnovers in the opening half, Calipari's crew led just 22-18 at halftime despite Louisville shooting a paltry 6-of-28.

It wasn't really the Cardinals' ineffective shooting as much as Kentucky's defensive prowess, though. Forde explained how it was getting done:

Both teams had their worst first-half performances on the scoring front this season, but that shouldn't be surprising after looking at their numbers on defense, per ESPN Stats & Information:

The Wildcats pulled out to an eight-point lead out of the break, then the Cardinals quickly made three of four to cut the gap to two. That was the story for the second half's early going, with Louisville's crowd igniting every time they got within a possession—only for Kentucky to jump right back in front by six or eight.

A dogfight seemed apparent from the opening tip, with both teams playing such ferocious defense and the shots failing to fall. But with the KFC Yum! Center rocking, ESPN's Jeff Goodman noted it's likely where Calipari would have wanted the game:

Louisville had the athleticism to hang with Kentucky (something almost no other team can say), but the Wildcats couldn't be held down for long.

Even with Willie Cauley-Stein out for much of the stretch after getting his fourth foul, Kentucky started pulling away. The Cats grabbed a double-digit lead—huge, at least for this game—on shots from Ulis and Karl-Anthony Towns heading into the final five minutes.

One of those shots was a clutch three from Ulis, prompting Bleacher Report's C.J. Moore to ponder the 18-year-old freshman's future:

His clutch moments came even after getting cut right above his eye, which left him bleeding down the side of his face before getting it patched up:

Ulis' strong play off the bench hid a poor shooting night from Andrew Harrison and Aaron Harrison, who combined to start 1-of-11 from the field because of the Cardinals' great defense. But Andrew Harrison made a deep three when it counted, pushing the Kentucky lead back up to 12 with just four minutes left.

Aaron Harrison followed suit a few minutes later, putting Louisville out of reach with a clutch three from the corner—pretty reminiscent of his NCAA Tournament shots, as CoachCal.com noted:

It wasn't a banner day for the Harrison twins, though, as Kyle Tucker of The Courier-Journal (Lexington, Ky.) noted a tough moment for one of them amid their poor shooting night:

Tucker provided quotes from Pitino, who spoke after the game about Kentucky's defense:

While some Kentucky players won't feel great about their individual offensive performances, this was a massive test for the Wildcats' championship—and undefeated season—hopes. And it's one they passed.

Not only was Louisville the highest-ranked team Kentucky will face all season, at No. 4, but the Wildcats don't even have a ranked foe on their remaining schedule. No SEC teams are currently ranked, meaning it might be a cakewalk for them to reach March Madness undefeated.

CBS Sports' Seth Davis noted how nobody's calling him crazy now for suggesting an undefeated season for the Cats:

For those wondering if Kentucky is going to lose this season, there are two ways to look at this. On one end, Louisville showed that teams with athletic big men and top-caliber defense can give the Wildcats problems.

On the other, if Louisville at home isn't going to beat this team, who will?

A hangover is imminent for the Cardinals, who—like Kentucky—built up their game against the in-state rivals like a championship. Instead of facing 18 unranked conference opponents like Kentucky, though, Louisville has No. 20 North Carolina on Jan. 10 and six ranked matchups left.

If the battle between these college basketball blue bloods showed us anything, though, it's that nobody would complain if we got another March (or April) rematch.