Alabama beat Kentucky the first time around. The rematch will be a whole different story
READ MORE
Preview: No. 17 Kentucky at No. 4 Alabama
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday night’s Kentucky-Alabama game in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Expand All
Alabama beat Kentucky the first time around. The rematch will be a whole different story
Where to watch and how to follow the Kentucky men’s basketball game at Alabama
How much has Kentucky basketball improved on the defensive end? We’ll find out Saturday
How No. 17 Kentucky matches up against No. 4 Alabama — with a game prediction
Here’s the most frustrating thing about Kentucky basketball’s injury predicament
Five weeks ago, Alabama beat Kentucky 102-97 in one of the most entertaining college basketball games of the season.
Afterward, Nate Oats called his team’s battle with Mark Pope’s Wildcats “a little bit of a chess match” — a sign of respect for the new UK coach, someone he’s praised at various points over the past several months.
Oats — an early adopter of analytics and a proponent of a more progressive style of basketball — often poked at former Kentucky coach John Calipari’s, shall we say, old-fashioned approach to the game.
When Pope entered the SEC last April, some around the sport pointed to Oats as the best local comparison to the new UK coach, and the leader of Alabama basketball again praised Pope for “modernizing” Kentucky’s offense on the eve of their first matchup last month — another comment that doubled as a critique of Calipari.
The chess match continues Saturday evening in Tuscaloosa, but the pieces will be totally different this time around. In fact, it might as well be an entirely different game altogether.
That Jan. 18 matchup was the first instance of Lamont Butler trying to battle through his left shoulder injury — he was hurt four days earlier in a victory over Texas A&M — and he played well, tallying 17 points, eight assists and just one turnover.
Fellow starter Jaxson Robinson played in that one, too, though some of the underlying metrics say it was perhaps his worst game in SEC play this season, despite hitting three 3-pointers and scoring 11 points.
Both Butler and Robinson are going to be sidelined for the rematch Saturday evening.
Those are major losses for Kentucky, but the Wildcats could see some gains elsewhere.
UK basketball players stepping up
Andrew Carr was on the court against Bama last month, too, but he was a shell of himself at that point in the season. The back problem that he’s been dealing with for the past couple of months was clearly bothering him. It was one of his worst games as a Wildcat.
Carr said this week that he felt worse in Kentucky’s loss at Georgia a week and a half earlier — and that might have actually been his worst outing of the season — but he agreed that he wasn’t himself against Alabama, either.
“Yes, at that point, it was just like a realization that I need to get better — a lot better than what I was, for sure,” he said.
With Carr ailing, his Bama counterpart — power forward Grant Nelson — had a field day. Nelson scored 25 points — still his season high — and grabbed 11 rebounds, going 5-for-6 on 2-pointers, 9-for-10 on free throws and working his way to the rim on many occasions.
Carr couldn’t do much to stop him when they were on the court together, and he didn’t play again for 10 days after that. He missed the team’s loss at Vanderbilt and played less than 90 seconds at Tennessee, looking out of sorts even upon his return.
But in Kentucky’s 82-61 win over Vanderbilt on Wednesday night, Carr scored 11 points and physically looked as good as he has in several weeks. Pope confirmed after the game that Monday and Tuesday of this week marked Carr’s first full consecutive practices since his back began bothering him in late December, and even Vandy coach Mark Byington noted after the game that he looked healthy again.
Carr also said he was feeling much better. And he’s looking forward to Saturday.
“Obviously, my matchup with Grant Nelson — he had a great game — and I’m super excited to step up to that challenge,” he said. “Be able to face him and be able to try and shut him down, because we know how good of a game he had against us here.”
With Butler, Carr and Robinson — and Kerr Kriisa — sidelined at various points over these past few weeks, others have been gaining confidence. That could pay dividends moving forward.
Kentucky’s trio of freshmen — Collin Chandler, Trent Noah and Travis Perry — have all played meaningful roles in victories over the past few weeks. They’ve all clearly grown — and shown the ability to be difference-makers against quality competition — since that first Alabama game, when Perry played seven scoreless minutes and Chandler and Noah didn’t play at all.
That trio combined to play more than 57 minutes in the win over Vandy this week, and Chandler had his best game as a Wildcat.
Starting center Amari Williams has also adopted a completely different offensive approach in recent weeks. He still has that same finesse as a passing 7-footer that he came to campus with last summer, but the 262-pounder has been throwing his weight around much more, overpowering opponents in the paint and sparking his teammates with physical, energetic play.
It’s also worth noting here that Alabama’s center, Clifford Omoruyi, has been dealing with an injury in recent days. He was listed as questionable to play earlier this week and then had one of his worst games of the season in a loss at Missouri, though he wasn’t listed on the Bama injury report Friday night.
Back to the Cats: Otega Oweh has been as consistent as ever, Koby Brea is still capable of hitting a flurry of 3-pointers at any time, and Ansley Almonor can do the same. All of those players played key roles in Kentucky’s win over Vanderbilt.
“This was a great response by our guys,” Pope said. “I’m really, incredibly proud of our guys. You know, we’re learning as fast as we can with this new roster. We got a bunch of guys stepping up, and I thought they did a great job.”
It was a good team effort under adverse circumstances — another positive step forward in what Pope has referred to as “a brand new season” for his revamped roster — but this weekend will present a new set of problems.
“An epic challenge of all challenges,” Pope said of the trip to Alabama.
Kentucky-Alabama basketball rematch
The Crimson Tide are coming into this one off their first two-game losing streak of the season. Oats’ team had lost only three games total before this mini-skid, which began last weekend — a 95-85 loss to No. 1-ranked Auburn — and continued Wednesday night with a 110-98 defeat at the hands of No. 15 Missouri.
By just about any measure, the loss to Mizzou marked Alabama’s worst defensive performance of the season. Oats was still going through his opening statement after that one when the fire alarm in the arena went off. “Perfect,” he quipped. “Press conference over, I guess, right?”
The annoying sound continued.
“Yeah, they were on fire tonight. That’s for sure,” Oats joked. “We’ve known that for about two hours. Somebody else just figured it out.”
The alarm persisted, and that was indeed the end of Oats’ presser. He stepped off the stage, and — a coach known for his preparation — no doubt got right to work on the Wildcats.
To take Alabama’s last two losses as a good sign for Kentucky would probably be misguided. This is a Tide team that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee — the actual folks in charge of setting the 2025 bracket — declared just last weekend to be the No. 2 overall team in America, behind only Auburn, the “unanimous choice” as the top overall seed.
A couple of losses to high-tier opponents isn’t going to change that standing too much, and — more likely than not — Oats and the Tide are going to step onto the court Saturday looking to take out their frustrations on Kentucky.
UK is expected to be a clear underdog, and the Cats will need a near-perfect effort from the players that Pope has available to pull off the upset.
Kentucky’s defense has been going through the process of incremental improvement ever since the dud at Ole Miss two and a half weeks ago. After that 98-84 loss, the Cats were 108th nationally in the defensive efficiency ratings at KenPom. Following the win over Vandy — holding a top 25ish offense to just 21 points in the second half, without Butler — UK had risen to 68th in those rankings.
“Well, there’s a lot of room for improvement, because we’re not great,” Pope said with a chuckle Wednesday night. “But we’re getting better. And with this new group, we’re getting better.”
This will be, by far, this new group’s biggest test yet.
Bama is the only team in college basketball averaging more than 90 points per game. The Tide rank No. 3 in offensive efficiency — behind only Auburn and Duke — and Oats and his crew have surely been pouring over recent film and poking holes in UK’s line of defense.
“They’re a super talented team,” Carr said. “And we know how fast they like to play, how much they shoot 3s — all of those things offensively. I think we gotta do a good job of trying to defend at the rim. … So, just trying to limit those things. And I think we’ll be able to go in there and try and get one back, like we did tonight.”
Saturday
No. 17 Kentucky at No. 4 Alabama
When: 6 p.m. EST
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 18-8 (7-6 SEC), Alabama 21-5 (10-3)
Series: Kentucky leads 117-42
Last meeting: Alabama won 102-97 on Jan. 18, 2025, in Lexington
This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
