ST. LOUIS -- Wally World is closing down for the summer. Next stop: the NBA. This stop wasn't the thrill ride Wally Szczerbiak and Miami of Ohio had hoped it would be.

Szczerbiak lived up to his soaring reputation last night, and the 10th-seeded Redhawks lived down to expectations in a 58-43 loss to Kentucky in a Midwest Region semifinal that wasn't really that close.

"We just ran into a marvelous team," said Miami coach Charlie Coles after a 24-8 season screeched to a halt at the Trans World Dome. "I hoped we would play well if we lost. That's a lot to hope for. I don't think we did."

It was too much to ask for against a deeper, more athletic, more experienced Kentucky team that is a staggering 54-6 in postseason play since 1992.

The defending champion Wildcats, in search of their fourth straight trip to the Final Four, face Michigan State in tomorrow's Midwest final.

It will not be nearly as easy as last night was. Outside of defending Szczerbiak, anyway.

Miami's splendid 6-foot-8 forward was a veritable one-man team against third-seeded Kentucky, scoring 23 points. Although the Redhawks argued there was more to the team than Szczerbiak, the truth was painfully obvious in the first half.

While Szczerbiak hit five of nine shots for 15 points, the rest of the team was 1-for-12 for four points.

Kentucky coach Tubby Smith figured Szczerbiak would do some damage, but his strategy was to hold down everyone else.

"You're not going to stop Wally Szczerbiak from scoring," Smith said. "He's too good a player, too versatile, too multi-talented.

"That's one of my mantras as a coach. I don't believe one guy can beat you. It was an unbelievable defensive effort on our kids' part."

That defensive effort also got to Szczerbiak, too. He committed six turnovers in the game and had just two rebounds.

"The way they defended me, they were switching those screens every time," said Szczerbiak, who scored 54 percent (90 of 168) of the Redhawks' points during their three tournament games. "They didn't give us anything easy. It was tough to finish over their big guys."

The 43 points by the Redhawks tied the Midwest Region record for fewest points in a game, also shared by Temple against Kansas in the second round in 1986 and Canisius against Utah in the first round in 1996.

Kentucky helped keep Miami in the game in the first half with 10 turnovers, but when the Wildcats went to a 2-3 zone defense in the second half, it ended quickly. The Redhawks short-armed their shots and never found any rhythm.

"I think the key was how much they used their zone defenses," Coles said. "I didn't realize how long they were. We didn't see that all year. The openings we wanted to have were not there in our zone offense."

Still, when Damon Frierson hit a three-point shot with 11: 12 left in the game, Miami was down by only 35-28. Scott Padgett answered by scoring 12 of Kentucky's next 14 points to open a 17-point lead.

Padgett's personal run started innocently enough with two free throws that were interrupted by a 20-second timeout to clean blood off his left elbow and left knee. Then, in the span of 77 seconds, he hit a pair of threes and blocked a Rob Mestas shot that became a Wayne Turner layup.

A Padgett layin and two free throws made it a 49-32 game with seven minutes to play.

"I was happy to contribute to the team because I hadn't done much up to that point," he said, referring to some first-half foul difficulties.

Padgett finished with a team-high 17 points, and Heshimu Evans added 11, setting up tomorrow's meeting with the top-seeded Spartans.

This will be the first meeting between the teams since 1978, when Kentucky beat Miami and Michigan State in the NCAA tournament en route to a championship in St. Louis.