Mark Pope’s UK team had a record night from the foul line in win over Texas
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UK basketball defeated Texas, 85-80, on Wednesday night inside Rupp Arena.
- The Wildcats made 30 free throws in the game and attempted 35 in total.
- Kentucky has now won four straight SEC games and will face Ole Miss on Saturday.
Texas coach Sean Miller was crystal clear about one of his team’s shortcomings following an 85-80 loss to Mark Pope’s Kentucky squad on Wednesday night at Rupp Arena.
The Longhorns have a fouling problem, and Miller is keenly aware of it.
“What our team — and this is a Texas problem — has is, we have a virus called fouling. And it has plagued us from the opening tip of the first game until tonight,” Miller said. “It’s not the officials. It’s not Kentucky. We will foul the living s*** out of you. We will foul a 3-point shooter. We’ll foul at the end of the clock. We’ll leave our feet on drives. We’ll reach. You describe the foul, and the team that I’m coaching will commit it.”
For good measure, Miller absolved the three game officials — Doug Shows, KB Burdett Jr. and Tony Chiazza — of any blame.
“It’s hard to win an SEC road game when the home team is 30 for 35 from the line,” Miller added. “I’m not messing around (about) the officiating. The officiating was fine. It was called well. We fouled.”
Miller’s summarization came after a five-point loss in which his team sent the Wildcats to the free-throw line a whopping 35 times. UK converted 30 of those foul shots for an 85.7% success rate. That’s the most free throws ever made in a game by a Pope-led UK team. Conversely, Texas went 18 for 20 from the foul line,
This means the Cats won the free-throw line by 12 points in a game that never featured a gap larger than 11 between the teams.
“It was patience. Like, our patience,” Pope said postgame of the reason why UK earned all those foul shots. “Sometimes you get to the free-throw line because you’re belligerent driving, putting your head down and you end up with a really poor two-point field-goal percentage. The game didn’t feel like that today. We felt like we were earning fouls because of our patience in our attack.”
A look at the underlying numbers confirms that Wednesday — both in UK’s ability to draw fouls and in the Wildcats’ foul-shooting frequency — was an outlier from the rest of the 2025-26 season.
Entering Wednesday’s slate of games, Kentucky ranked 213th in the nation (per KenPom) in free-throw rate, which measures a team’s ability to get to the charity stripe. Calculated by dividing the number of free throws attempted by the number of field goals attempted, UK clocked in at a 34.4% free-throw rate before taking on the Longhorns. Against Miller’s group, Kentucky enjoyed a 60.3% free-throw rate (35 free throws against 58 field goals).
Kentucky’s ability to draw contact, get to the line and execute was such that the Cats won despite not making a shot from the field for the final 5:48 of Wednesday’s contest.
“Free-throw rate is something that this team has a talent to do, but it’s got to be incredibly intentional,” Pope said earlier this month. “It just can’t be like, ‘I’m jumping up in the air and hoping that the ref bails me out.’”
Free throws accounted for 35.3% of Kentucky’s points against Texas. That’s another wild outlier from the season so far. Entering the game, UK ranked 255th nationally in free-throw point distribution at 18.5%. That’s a measure of what percentage of a team’s points come from foul shots.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that can get downhill and get to the free-throw line,” senior guard Otega Oweh said. “We’ve just got to keep on putting pressure on the refs to call it. It’s big for us, because that’s going to open up our 3-point shots as well.”
Something else to celebrate from Wednesday’s performance? The Wildcats’ ability to actually knock down the free throws awarded them. Pope’s team was squarely middle of the pack when it came to foul shooting ahead of the game, ranking 169th in the country with a 72.6% free-throw shooting mark.
Senior guard Denzel Aberdeen (9 for 12), sophomore guard Collin Chandler (6 for 6) and junior forward Mo Dioubate (5 for 6) each made at least five free throws in the victory.
“It’s just part of us finding our offense,” Dioubate said. “I think if we just keep playing that way — getting downhill, playing off two feet, being patient — it’s going to force the defense to make decisions. Either they’re going to have to step up or they’re going to have to foul us.”
While Miller — who’s in his first season coaching Texas after previous stops at Arizona and Xavier — still has plenty of concerns about his team’s inability to play defense without fouling, he credited the Wildcats with forcing the issue.
“I thought they did an outstanding job of attacking our drop coverage,” Miller said, admitting the Wildcats became too comfortable when facing that defensive setup. “... Their guards did a good job of getting us on our hip and getting into that middle game.”
As Pope has tinkered with his team’s playing style this season, one of the hardest nuts to crack has been Kentucky’s halfcourt offense. Against Texas, Pope saw a clear progression in the tenacity with which his team operated in that space.
“We probably had more second- and third-side possessions than we did all season long in any game so far this season,” Pope said. “Part of that was because of the drop, but the drop tricks you into going fast... and taking shots you don’t necessarily want to take.”
Some of Pope’s postgame pride with relation to the foul line was a result of this specific matchup. Texas entered the game as the top team in the country in free-throw rate, and 7-foot sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis led all of high-major hoops in free throws.
Vokietaitis averaged nearly nine free throws per game before playing Kentucky. He shot just six freebies against the Wildcats.
And with this win now under their belt, Pope and his team can be hopeful that Kentucky’s aggression in the halfcourt offense and ability to manufacture points will translate as the thick of SEC play arrives.
“I think it has to do with the way we’ve been playing,” Dioubate added. “We’ve been getting a lot of paint touches, making it harder for the opponent. As long as we keep that up, we’re going to shine.”
