By Pope era standards, this win wasn’t pretty. But the UK coach found reason for praise.
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Game day: No. 8 Kentucky 87, Western Kentucky 68
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Western Kentucky in Rupp Arena.
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It wasn’t necessarily close, but it was closer than expected.
The No. 8-ranked Kentucky Wildcats defeated Western Kentucky 87-68 on Tuesday night, a rare meeting between the two in-state schools resulting in some rare adversity for Mark Pope’s team.
The Cats faced many stressful moments in their 77-72 win over then-No. 6 Duke two weeks earlier, sure, but the other four games on UK’s schedule had been cakewalks. Pope’s squad won those matchups — against Wright State, Bucknell, Lipscomb and Jackson State — by an average 36.8 points. None of them was closer than 28 points at the end. None of them had any hint of being remotely in question after halftime. The Cats basically had their way with each foe.
Against Western Kentucky, they had to fight for it.
This game was so out of line with the previous four against mid-major opposition that Andrew Carr — the star of the night — was asked if a 19-point victory actually felt like a “close” win by comparison.
“I don’t know necessarily about close,” he said. “But certainly we felt a lot more frustration in this game. Certainly in the first half, as well. We just were out of rhythm, I felt like — our offense specifically. But credit to Western. They did a great job of pressuring us and trying to take away what we’re looking for. And we’re going to continue to grow and keep getting better at reading the way that people want to defend us and taking advantage of that and punishing them for that. So, I’m excited.”
The Hilltoppers tried their best to run the Cats — a team with a clearly stated goal of 35 3-point attempts per game — off the perimeter and make it tough on them when they did let loose from deep.
“Obviously, our emphasis was to guard the 3-point line,” said WKU coach Hank Plona. “I’m no expert on anything, but I would think playing these guys, it has to be. If you don’t emphasize that, I think that they can really get you.”
The Cats started slow from deep — missing 10 of their first 12 3-point attempts — and didn’t exactly catch fire from there, finishing 8-for-29 from long range. That’s 27.6%, a far cry from the 42.3% they were shooting coming into the night.
Plona said his Toppers wanted to do their best to limit Koby Brea and Jaxson Robinson from deep. Brea came in at 20-for-27 on 3-pointers — an obscene 74.1% — and missed four of his first five attempts from the perimeter Tuesday night, before hitting his last two to go 3-for-7. Robinson was 2-for-8 on 3-pointers.
Meanwhile, the Cats found other ways to win.
When the 3-pointers were hard to come by in the early going, they continued to cut hard toward the basket and got several easy looks in the process. WKU also had a difficult time containing the Wildcats, who drew 29 fouls and went 29-for-42 on free throws.
It wasn’t a pretty way to win — certainly not as visually pleasing as the other blowouts of the Pope era to that point — but it was a win nonetheless.
Kentucky came in as 24.5-point favorites but led by only six points, 57-51, with less than 12 minutes on the clock. Over the nearly eight minutes that followed, Western Kentucky managed to make just two baskets.
“We didn’t get a lot of clean looks,” Plona said. “And if we did get clean looks — I thought maybe the middle of the second half we got a few — but, man, by that point, we were a little mentally and physically tired and worn out.”
Plona noted that WKU’s leading scorer, Don McHenry, missed a couple of good looks in that stretch that he normally makes. He gave credit to Kentucky for that, noting that Lamont Butler had been on McHenry the entire game, wearing him down as the night went on.
“He’s among the best defenders in the country,” Plona said of UK’s starting point guard, his tone suggesting that it was an obvious statement.
WKU’s coach also heaped praise on Carr — 18 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and zero turnovers — who played some minutes at the 5 spot as starting center Amari Williams struggled with turnovers. Carr also showed a level of physicality that drew Pope’s praise.
In fact, Kentucky’s coach was upbeat over the victory, despite his team’s struggles. The Cats didn’t make shots at their typical rate — 40.3% from the field, to go with those low 3-point numbers — but they held WKU to 31.8% shooting and 15.4% from deep, outrebounding the Hilltoppers 54-41.
“I was really proud of us defensively,” Pope said. “There were several stretches in the game where we weren’t functioning great on the offensive end, and we were finding great joy on the defensive end of the ball. And that is a winning formula.”
Pope acknowledged that it “wasn’t a great offensive game” for his Wildcats, but they still scored 87 points. “That’s the crazy part of it, right?”
The takeaway was the Wildcats’ defense, and Robinson, Carr, Butler and Otega Oweh all got specific shout-outs from their head coach.
“On the defensive end of the floor, if we can really find joy there, and if we keep going back to the well over and over and over again, we have a chance to win,” Pope said. “We have a chance to win and win a lot of games and win big. So I was thrilled with that tonight. It was really special. It might not be the most aesthetically pleasing thing, but it was an awesome effort on the defensive end by our guys.”
And in the end, the Cats won comfortably, leading by at least 14 points over the final nine minutes.
“I’m really proud of the guys,” Pope said. “You know, it’s fun — like, we can win different ways. And that’s really, really important. That bodes well for our guys and our team. And tonight, being dominant on the glass and imposing our will physically was really, really important. And I thought our guys did that.”
This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 11:42 PM.
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