UK wouldn’t have beaten Mississippi State without Ansley Almonor. ‘It’s why I came here.’
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Game day: No. 6 Kentucky 95, No. 14 Mississippi State 90
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Mississippi State in Starkville, Miss.
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For Kentucky basketball fans, Saturday was a waiting game.
The night before the sixth-ranked Cats were set to play No. 14 Mississippi State in Starkville, the SEC’s injury report came out, and Andrew Carr’s name was on it.
UK’s versatile forward was listed as “questionable” — a designation that, according to the league’s new roster availability protocols, basically meant he was a 50-50 shot to play — and, in this game, it was known going in that the Wildcats would need all the help they could get.
When the final update to that availability report came out a couple of hours before the game, Carr’s status was still uncertain. He would be reassessed during and after pregame warmups, and a final decision would be made right before tipoff.
Even by the time that UK head coach Mark Pope spoke with Tom Leach for his pregame radio interview shortly before the game, he didn’t know whether or not Carr would play. When it came time for the “what if?” question — who would step into the starting lineup if the 6-foot-11 forward couldn’t go? — Pope didn’t offer a moment’s hesitation.
“We’ll go with Ansley,” the Kentucky coach said so quickly that he actually stepped on the question.
Carr played, so that portion of the interview ended up being a moot point, as far as the Wildcats’ lineup was concerned. But it did show Pope’s confidence in Ansley Almonor, the senior forward who spent the past three seasons at Fairleigh Dickinson — emerging as a big fish in a mid-major pond — before coming to Kentucky to challenge himself at the highest level late last offseason.
Even though Carr gave it a go — shaking off a nagging back injury to contribute to the Cats’ 95-90 win over Mississippi State — Pope ended up going with Ansley Almonor after all.
And he delivered.
While Almonor was quiet for most of the night, he made his presence felt at an opportune time, knocking down three 3-pointers in a span of two minutes late in the game to help rally the Cats to an impressive road victory in the SEC.
“It’s why I came here,” Almonor said of the confidence Pope has shown in him from the start. “You know, he knows what I’m about. We practice every day. We work hard every day. You know, I shoot every day. So it was only a matter of time when I was gonna start making shots. And he knew that. He believed in me. He kept telling me to keep shooting. And today it happened.”
For Almonor, the flurry came out of nowhere.
He scored 11 points in his UK debut — a 103-62 win over Wright State in the season opener — and hit double figures in two other games against lesser opponents in November, but he hadn’t scored more than six points or made more than two shots in any game since tallying a season-high 12 in a 105-76 win over Georgia State on Nov. 29.
In the eight games that followed, he made a total of just three 3-pointers — his strongest attribute coming into the season — and was a combined 2-for-12 from the floor (and 1-for-9 from deep) in high-profile games against Florida, Ohio State, Louisville, Gonzaga and Clemson.
But with Carr’s back limiting him to 21 minutes — a season low against top competition — Almonor played 19 off the bench, a season high for him against the top teams on UK’s schedule.
For the first 10 or so, he didn’t do much. But when Carr was forced to sub out with 7:59 left and the Cats trailing 80-78 — never to return again — Almonor made the most of the opportunity.
Mississippi State had just battled back from a 14-point deficit to take the lead for the first time in the second half less than 20 seconds earlier. On UK’s first offensive possession after Almonor subbed in, the 6-7 forward flared out near the top of the key and let loose from 3-point range, hitting the shot to put Kentucky ahead 81-80.
The Cats never trailed from there, thanks in large part to Almonor.
On UK’s next possession, he caught the ball on the wing and immediately let it go. That one fell, too, putting the Wildcats ahead 84-80. After a jumper from teammate Otega Oweh extended Kentucky’s lead to 86-80 and two Mississippi State free throws cut the advantage back to four points, Almonor ended up with the ball in his hands again.
This time, he took a handoff from Amari Williams at the top of the key and, once again, shot without hesitation. That one dropped, too, giving UK an 89-82 lead with a little more than five minutes left. Almonor finished with 11 points, going 3-for-6 from 3-point range, and the Cats outscored the Bulldogs by 10 with him on the court.
Ever since the offseason, Pope has been telling people that Almonor would “win us games” at some point. The coach often pointed to the transfer as a symbol of the self-sacrifice he saw across his first UK roster. And Pope offered up the reminder Saturday night that Almonor came to Kentucky knowing full well that Carr was already on the roster and pretty much a shoo-in for the starting spot at his position.
“What a brilliant performance from him,” Pope said. “And, I’m telling you, that’s why you come to Kentucky. Because you cannot buy — I don’t care if you’re 100 times over billionaire — you can never, ever buy what Ansley Almonor just did and what he just experienced. Never. There’s nothing that can buy it but just the blood, sweat equity and the courage to actually come here and then step up and do it. There’s only one way to get it. And it’s to do everything that he’s done to get here. And I’m so happy for him.”
While interviewing Almonor after the game, UK radio analyst and Wildcats great Jack Givens said that he, too, had been telling people all season that the player would eventually have a major impact on some Kentucky wins.
“Coach said the same thing,” Almonor said. “Coach has been telling everybody that I was gonna be able to come here and win us a couple games, and he didn’t know when it was gonna happen, but I was gonna be able to do that. And you’ve been saying the same things. I appreciate you guys having that confidence in me.”
The star of the night was Jaxson Robinson, who scored 27 points — and went 7-for-10 from 3-point range — to deliver his best performance as a Wildcat so far. But even after his breakthrough game, Robinson had to share some of the credit for the victory.
“Big shots. Big, big shots,” he said. “Coach Pope was raving about him in the locker room after the game. We all know what Ansley can do. He can shoot the ball. And we just talked about how he can win us a ballgame at any moment, and tonight he was super hot. Those 3s were huge. And I was super happy and excited for him. I think everybody was.
“And we couldn’t have done it without him.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
