Montrezl Harrell turned a Monday night in Louisville into a personal showcase, and The Ville rode it to a lopsided 82-62 win over La Familia at Freedom Hall to even their best-of-three Kentucky alumni series and send it to a winner-take-all game Wednesday night at 8 at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington.
Harrell was everywhere. He scored 35 points on 14-of-16 shooting, added eight rebounds and two assists, and did it all in 34 minutes without a foul or turnover. He scored from the block, on rolls, on putbacks, from midrange and from three, while La Familia kept finding out the hard way that he was not going to be ignored this time.
Early in the second half, during a timeout, Harrell stepped away from the huddle, spotted former Louisville teammate and NBA player Jordan Nwora nearby and pointed toward him.
"It's a whole different game when I touch the ball," Harrell shouted. "You see what I'm sayin'?"
The answer, from the way the game unfolded, was yes.
The Ville looked like a different team than the one that lost Game 1 on Saturday. That night, La Familia controlled the action at Memorial Coliseum, built a 17-point lead and held on for a 72-68 win. Monday was the reversal: The Ville defended, rebounded and fed Harrell the ball instead of treating him like an afterthought.
Coach Michael Balfour said the adjustment was simple after watching the film from Game 1. The Ville took 28 three-pointers Saturday and made six, so the plan changed.
Maybe, he reasoned, they should throw it to the 6-foot-7 former NBA Sixth Man of the Year who has spent much of his adult life frightening people near the basket.
That worked.
Harrell was coming off 42 points in a BIG3 game Sunday, then followed it with another huge night at Freedom Hall. Asked how he keeps doing it, he smiled and said, "I'm blessed, brother."
He also made clear the performance was personal.
"It was a statement game for me today," he said. "I seen all the online talk and all the nonsense."
Balfour said Harrell is at his most dangerous when he feels motivated, and Monday he looked like he had arrived with a full load of that energy. La Familia coach Jon Hood, when asked what he saw from Harrell, kept it simple.
"I saw that he had 35," Hood said.
That was the story, but not the whole one. The Ville won the rebounding battle 43-30, doubled La Familia in paint scoring 40-20, held La Familia to 33.9% shooting and outscored it 15-6 in second-chance points. Andrew Harrison led La Familia with 19 points and four made threes, Chris Coffey added 14, and the rest of the roster combined to shoot 10 of 43.
The Ville led by as many as 26 in the second half, and the game took on the feel of a long Louisville release valve. There were technical fouls, plenty of jawing and more than enough bodies hitting the floor to keep the temperature high. At one point on Louisville's bench, three players had massage guns going at the same time.
Then Alex Matthews delivered the moment everyone will remember.
With 4:10 left, and before the Elam Ending target score had even been set, Matthews drove hard at the rim with Chris Coffey in front of him and hammered a right-handed dunk over him. Freedom Hall erupted.
Current Louisville players jumped from their baseline seats. Adrian Wooley looked stunned.
Flory Bidunga even leaned down to look at the photo on my camera and said, "That," he said, "is iconic."
The score was 72-49, and the message was already clear.
On the next possession, Matthews threw an alley-oop to Harrell for another dunk. Then the clock stopped and the target score was announced.
Matthews, the Elizabethtown native and John Hardin High School graduate, is one of the few players on The Ville roster without a personal Louisville-Kentucky chapter. He has one now.
"It's definitely different from what you see on TV when you're actually on the court experiencing it," Matthews said. "But for me, I love seeing that stuff. The rivalries, especially UK-U of L, you can't beat that."
He finished with 14 points, hit three of four from deep and handed out four assists, but the dunk was the moment that swallowed the night.
Matthews called it "the icing on the cake."
That barely covers it.
The series now heads back to Lexington with everything still on the table. La Familia gets home court Wednesday.
The Ville gets Harrell. Monday made one thing plain: when he gets the ball, the game changes.
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