‘The prettiest offense’ in college basketball? Kentucky won without it this time.
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Game day: No. 8 Kentucky 81, No. 11 Texas A&M 69
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Texas A&M in Rupp Arena.
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A day before his 11th-ranked Texas A&M Aggies hit the Rupp Arena court, Buzz Williams was back home and beaming about the Kentucky basketball team he was about to see.
“For sure, the prettiest offense in the country,” Williams said.
Not on Tuesday night. Not at the beginning, at least.
The No. 8 Wildcats’ scoring attack was about as ugly as it gets right out of the gate.
Andrew Carr hit a shot on UK’s first possession, then the Cats missed five in a row. Kentucky ended up missing seven of its first nine attempts — and all five of its 3-pointers — to start the game before Jaxson Robinson (0-for-3 from deep himself in the opening minutes) finally buried a 3 from the wing. And then the Cats missed their next five 3-pointers after that.
In the end, it worked out fine. The score: Kentucky 81, Texas A&M 69. The result: UK’s record against teams in the top 15 improved to 5-0 in a season already filled with big-time victories.
It wasn’t pretty. But that was just fine, too.
“Couldn’t be more proud of our guys,” Wildcats coach Mark Pope said afterward. “I love winning a game where we never felt great. … There was no three-minute run where we felt great, where we felt like we really got into a flow. And for our guys to win that game is really important. I like the way that we can win different ways. I’m proud of our effort on the glass, our effort on the defensive end. And we still can get so much better.”
This was certainly a different way for these Wildcats to win.
It was a far cry from the 95-90 victory over No. 14 Mississippi State in Starkville on Saturday night and nowhere close to the 106-100 portrait of basketball beauty that was on display in a win over No. 6 Florida the Saturday before.
On Tuesday night, the Cats missed 14 of their first 19 shots. And this wasn’t simply a slow start that got turned around after a couple of TV timeouts. By the time Robinson missed a 3-pointer with a little less than two minutes to go in the half, UK had gone 8-for-27 from the field. Over the first 15 minutes of the night, the Cats had missed 10 of 11 shots from long range.
Not exactly the beautiful game.
“We started out 1-for-11 — is that true, from the 3?” Pope said, his voice shifting to a comedic tone as he stated the obvious. “And, so, you know, that’s not very fun.”
Kentucky was 3-for-15 from deep and down 31-27 at the moment Robinson — a fifth-year college player who began his career as a 17-year-old at Texas A&M — let one fly from right in front of the Aggies bench with about 90 seconds left in the first half.
It dropped, and Robinson turned around with a gesture and, it seems, some words in the direction of the visitors. He got hit with a technical for that reaction.
With the game tied at 32 and the final seconds until halftime ticking away, Robinson found himself in basically the same spot with the ball. He shot it again. He made it again. He turned around again. And he gestured again. No technical this time, but the shot did give the Wildcats a three-point lead heading into the break. It never got any closer than that in the second half.
Could Robinson shed some light on what led to the technical foul?
“No,” he said, after pausing to consider.
Could he maybe clean things up, explain it in a way suitable for print in a family-friendly publication?
“No,” he said, more quickly this time.
Did he even say anything at all?
“Honestly, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I blacked out. I don’t know.”
We’ll classify that as a “yes.” And did he say anything the second time he turned toward the Texas A&M bench, after hitting the shot that ultimately gave the Cats the lead for good?
“Nah, I didn’t say anything on the second one,” he confirmed.
Robinson hit another big 3-pointer shortly after the action resumed, capping a 13-0 UK run that stretched over both halves and gave the Cats a double-digit lead that they sustained for the majority of the game from there.
Robinson scored 22 points. Carr finished with 13, and Otega Oweh scored 11.
That was it, as far as Wildcats in double figures in the points column. There was plenty of ugly on the stat sheet, too. UK came into the game ranked second nationally with a turnover rate of 13.2%. Against A&M, the Cats turned it over a season-high 17 times, on 23.3% of their possessions. Four of their starters had two fouls by halftime.
When Pope was asked afterward what prevented his team from getting frustrated amid those early struggles, the Kentucky coach laughed.
“There was a lot of frustration,” he admitted. “That’s what Texas A&M does, really well.”
That frustration was contagious. The Rupp Arena crowd took its angst out on the officials. Even Pope himself, usually a beacon of congeniality — by college basketball standards — in the way he treats the referees offered up a hearty protest following a particularly curious call that resulted in Amari Williams’ second foul.
But the frustration never seemed to settle.
“Just keep shooting,” Robinson said of the collective mentality. “That’s all my teammates, my coaches are telling me. Like you said, I missed the first (three), but I knew eventually one was going to fall. And once it went in, you see what happened. So, just staying confident.”
There were also some positives to focus on, even if the overall picture wasn’t all that pretty.
“There was so much good happening on the floor,” Pope said of keeping calm amid the early offensive struggles.
Kentucky’s work on the glass was of particular note. The Cats outrebounded the Aggies 40-30, beating a team that prides itself on board work for the second consecutive game — UK outrebounded Mississippi State 41-33 — and, even more impressively, outscoring A&M in second-chance points 13-11. The Aggies are the nation’s No. 1 offensive rebounding team.
Robinson’s eight rebounds ended up tying his career high. Williams grabbed 12 boards, earning Pope’s praise for his physicality. “I love him,” Buzz Williams said of UK’s center.
The Cats had been lacking in that area for much of the season, especially in their losses.
That kind of play isn’t pretty to watch, but it wins basketball games against tough opponents.
“We’ve been hearing the ‘soft’ word being thrown around with this Kentucky jersey,” Robinson said. “And we take that personally. And we don’t think that people are saying that anymore. And we went out and showed it the last two games.”
Pope also liked his team’s defense, which certainly hasn’t been its calling card so far this season. The Cats held the Aggies to 39.0% shooting for the game, 0-for-12 from 3-point range in the second half and allowed only four assists, which was half A&M’s previous season low of eight.
“There was so much good for us to keep talking about in timeouts, for us to keep focusing on,” Pope said. “When you kind of keep focusing on what you’re doing well, I think it gives you some staying power. And our guys are pretty good about metabolizing frustration. They’re pretty good at that, which is massively important. If you’re gonna be a good team, you better be able to get rid of frustration. You better be able to just absorb it and spit it out, and our guys can do it.”
Not long after taking his seat at the podium, Pope glanced down at his box score. What he saw there wasn’t pretty, not in the way Kentucky basketball so far this season often has been.
Some of the other numbers on that piece of paper — against one of the best defensive teams, one of the grittiest squads in college basketball — made him proud nonetheless. What he had just seen with his own eyes did, too.
Even when Kentucky basketball didn’t look like Kentucky basketball, the Cats beat a top-15 team by double digits. Pretty or not, they got the job done.
“We never were flowing great offensively, but we just kept fighting and fighting and fighting until we kind of found some cracks. … I mean, it just gives a sense of how potent we are, offensively. You feel like it’s a night where you just can’t get a bucket, and you put up 81.
“It’s pretty great. It’s fun to have that team.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 12:27 AM.
