A few days earlier the Cardinals had been exposed for every weakness they had against Villanova. It looked as if the same thing would happen again as Marquette dominated the Cardinals for the entire first and most of the second half. With 5:44 left in the game it looked to be over at 65-47. But then the unthinkable happened as the Cardinals started to put together a string of baskets that would end with the Marquette lead being cut to 70-69 with 12 seconds left.

Then with most of the Yum Center crowd in their cars heading home the ball was inbounded to Preston Knowles, and it looked like he would be the one to take the final shot. It seemed the Marquette coach had the same idea as three of the Golden Eagles players converged on Knowles. Knowing he was going to attract the attention Knowles found Kyle Kuric slicing to the basket for a lay-up that seemed to roll around the rim forever before going in to win the game.

The Cardinals had come back from 18 points down with 5:44 left to win the game. Kyle Kuric was quoted after the game “If we were going to lose, we were going to lose fighting.” Knowles said after his heads up play “They were all concentrating on me, and I made them pay for it.” Rick Pitino was in awe of his scrappy team and said after the game “That’s one of the top-five comebacks,” “They outplayed us for the first 34 minutes. I’m really proud of these guys. I’m shaking. It happened so fast.”