As soon as Anthony Davis hit the floor, John Calipari sprang into action, bouncing off the Kentucky bench with arms raised high. Davis, the piano wire thin forward, had just been dragged down from behind as he streaked for what should have been an uncontested dunk.

Anthony Davis took a beating at LSU, but never lost his cool in the Cats' victory (Photo by Matt McCarty)

Only Davis not got to the rim, as LSU’s Malcolm White lifted both arms, extended them fully, lunged, and grabbed each of Davis’ shoulders, pulling him to the Maravich Assembly Center floor in what resembled a horse collar tackle.

This wasn’t basketball, it was bush league and replays appeared to show it was premeditated. It was the type of play that ends a player’s season and earned White a flagrant two foul, which demands an automatic ejection.

“I hope people are watching it and there’s calls within the league like, ‘This can’t go on,’” Calipari said after the game.

For now though, the beat in the Southeastern Conference goes on. How do you beat No. 1 Kentucky? You attempt to bully, batter and punk the Cats, especially the skinny freshman forward who turned playing defense into what the cool kids do. And it wasn’t the only play on the day where LSU got a shot at the nation’s leading shot blocker. Davis hit his head on a Tigers’ knee in the first half on a spill that appeared, at least in part, to be the cause of having his jersey tugged by a LSU player. In the closing minutes he took a forearm shove/chop as he scored on a rebound dunk.

The continued shots at Davis left his teammates infuriated, most notably Terrence Jones. Coincidentally or not, Jones had his best game in six weeks and played with a fire that had been lacking most of the season.

“Stuff like that happening to one of your brothers, you don't like that,” Jones said. “The only way we could redeem that is by just continuing to play hard and just show it through the score. I think we just tried to turn it up for all the little nicky-nack fouls that they were giving at the end. It just happened to work out for us.

Even the normally reserved senior Darius Miller uncharacteristically spoke out.

“We was kind of mad,” Miller said. “Like I said, we felt like it was a questionable play. I don't know what (White) was trying to do, so I'm not going to say anything on it, but we was mad. That's our brother, our teammate. When somebody goes down like that, especially the way he did, we was kind of upset with it.”

Despite the attempts to get under his skin, Davis did what he has all season – pick himself up, refuse to dust himself off and march to the free throw line without saying a peep. The message? You can’t intimidate him.

“That’s the kind of kid he is. He just wants to win,” Calipari said. “By getting up, he shows that he has the courage to do what he needs to do. Doesn’t do anything foolish. He didn’t do something; they did. Let them pay the price, so don’t come back and do something. That’s hard for a young kid.”

LSU found out the hard way such tactics only make the Cats more dangerous.

You can see video of and discuss Malcolm White’s foul on Anthony Davis and discuss in the House of Blue