Kentucky spreads the offense around again, beats Missouri in SEC basketball home opener
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Game day: No. 6 Kentucky 90, Missouri 77
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Missouri in Rupp Arena.
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Kentucky’s first home game in league play was neither a rout nor particularly precarious.
The Missouri Tigers — double-digit underdogs in Rupp Arena — looked like they might be on the wrong end of a blowout in the early going, regrouping enough only to hang around until the end of UK’s 90-77 victory.
The No. 6-ranked Wildcats improved to 12-2 on the season, 2-0 in SEC play and won their sixth consecutive game since that upset home loss to UNC Wilmington on Dec. 2. Their only other defeat came to then-No. 1 Kansas in the second week of the season.
It was another balanced attack by a UK team that entered the night with five different players averaging more than 12 points per game.
In this one, Rob Dillingham led the way with 23 points, followed by Tre Mitchell with 20, D.J. Wagner with 16, and Antonio Reeves adding 14 in the scoring column. Aaron Bradshaw also hit double figures with 10 points.
Dillingham’s scoring damage came in just 19 minutes on the court, his playing time limited by two fouls in the first half and two more midway through the second half. Even in relatively limited action, this was the first time the freshman scored more than 20 points for the Cats this season.
Reeves snapped his streak of 24 consecutive games with at least one made 3-pointer — he was 0-for-5 from deep Tuesday — but he also went 8-of-8 on free throws and added six rebounds, helping UK beat the Tigers on the boards 42-27. The Cats were 27-for-32 from the free throw line as a team.
Mitchell had a team-high 14 rebounds and added two blocked shots in nearly 40 minutes on the court. He played all but 22 seconds, and his scoreline accounted for Kentucky’s first 20-10 game of the season.
Reed Sheppard scored just three points and went 1-of-4 from the floor, but he added a team-high four assists along with two steals. Bradshaw — the star of Kentucky’s comeback win at Florida over the weekend — tallied six rebounds in 30 minutes.
It looked like Kentucky might run away in the first half.
The Wildcats trailed only twice — a couple of two-point deficits that lasted a total of 57 seconds in the earliest moments of the game — and led by as many as 14 points, going ahead 35-21 on a Dillingham 3-pointer with 10:06 left until halftime.
Missouri followed that up with a 10-0 run that took only two and a half minutes, however, scoring against a Kentucky defense that struggled throughout the night. After Dillingham’s 3 to put the Cats up 14, they struggled on offense, as well.
Kentucky made 12 of its first 17 shots — and hit 5 of 7 from 3-point range — over the opening 10 minutes of the game, then went ice cold going into the halftime locker room. The Wildcats shot just 3-for-15 and missed all eight of their 3-point attempts in the final 10 minutes of the first half.
UK came out of halftime similarly cold — missing its first three shots of the second half — but the Cats got a quick burst from there, making 4 of 5 shots and going on an 8-2 run over a span of just 71 seconds to take a 55-46 lead and force Mizzou coach Dennis Gates to call a timeout.
The Wildcats’ lead crept back into the double digits before the first TV timeout of the second half, and the Tigers never got closer than seven points over the final 15 minutes of the game, though they never trailed by more than 15 points in that stretch, that deficit coming in the final minute. The Tigers missed 13 straight field goal attempts over a nearly 10-minute stretch late in the second half.
Kentucky was a 12-point favorite just before tipoff against Missouri, which entered the day at No. 102 in the KenPom ratings, 13th in the SEC ahead of only Vanderbilt (No. 184). That website projected Kentucky to win 87-73 on Tuesday night, giving the Cats an 89% probability of victory.
Adou Thiero out
Sophomore guard Adou Thiero missed his third consecutive game Tuesday with what UK has been terming “general soreness,” and he remains day to day.
John Calipari noted on his weekly radio show Monday night that Thiero, who has not played in a game since Kentucky beat Louisville on Dec. 21, did not practice earlier that day. The 6-foot-8 player did not go through pregame warmups Tuesday night, but he was on the court with his teammates during that time and sat on the UK bench once the game started.
Thiero is averaging 7.6 points and 5.6 rebounds in 23.1 minutes per game this season, and he’s provided a blend of physicality and athleticism — especially as a rebounder — while he has been on the court. He also missed a game earlier this season due to concussion protocol.
Kentucky’s next game
UK will be back on the road Saturday against Texas A&M, the team picked to finish second in the SEC during the preseason. The Aggies haven’t been as strong as expected so far, taking a 9-5 record into Tuesday night’s game at No. 16 Auburn.
Texas A&M is led by SEC preseason player of the year Wade Taylor IV, who has indeed been among the top performers in the league so far this season. He was averaging 18.0 points, 4.2 assists and 2.4 steals per game heading into this week. The rest of the team has struggled, relative to expectations, with losses to Florida Atlantic, Virginia, Memphis and Houston before a more concerning 15-point home defeat to LSU over the weekend. The Aggies entered the week shooting just 40.6% from the floor and 26.6% from 3-point range — 13th and 14th in the SEC, respectively. A&M started the day at No. 34 in the KenPom ratings despite the early struggles.
Saturday’s game is sold out and is scheduled for a 2 p.m. tipoff on ESPN.
This story was originally published January 9, 2024 at 9:23 PM.
