Kentucky basketball on Monday resembled the Cats in Canada. And that’s a good thing.
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Game day: No. 16 Kentucky 86, New Mexico State 46
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Monday night’s men’s basketball season opener between Kentucky and New Mexico State in Rupp Arena.
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All in all, not bad for a first game.
Well, it wasn’t really Kentucky basketball’s first game. After all, John Calipari’s young Wildcats played four games — all victories in GLOBL JAM 2023 — in Canada and a pair of exhibition blowouts before lacing up their shoes for the real start of the 2023-24 campaign Monday night at Rupp Arena.
They defeated a totally new New Mexico State 86-46. The game was much like the score. Jason Hooten’s Aggies stayed within striking distance in the first half, then faded in the second. Up 37-29 at the break, Kentucky outscored the visitors 49-17 over the final 20 minutes.
The biggest takeaway: The Kentucky team that played Monday in front of the home folks looked very much like the Kentucky team that played in Toronto.
That wasn’t just because Calipari was missing all of his 7-footers. Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso are still rehabbing from offseason foot surgeries. Postgame Monday, Calipari said Bradshaw is two weeks ahead of Onyenso, but still probably at least a week from full-go in practice. As for the newest 7-footer, Croatian import Zvonimir Ivisic, UK is still awaiting word from the NCAA Clearinghouse about eligibility.
Where the Cats at Rupp most resembled the Cats in Canada is the way they shared the basketball. For a team laden with freshmen, UK’s players have shown a pleasing knack for finding their teammates.
Calipari keeps talking about how he wants this team to play “random” basketball. When asked for a specific definition, the coach described it as “spacing and playing off each other.” And the Cats did that.
Kentucky finished with 17 assists. Seven players contributed to that total. Tre Mitchell, the 6-foot-9 grad transfer from West Virginia, led the way with five assists. Freshman guard D.J. Wagner added four. Fellow freshman Rob Dillingham was credited with three. Yet another fellow freshman Reed Sheppard had two.
Mitchell grabbed a game-high nine rebounds to go with those assists. Even without Oscar Tshiebwe crashing the boards, Kentucky did manage to outrebound the Aggies 43-33.
“We rebounded today because the guards rebounded,” Calipari said. “Robert got five. Reed had five. Antonio (Reeves) stuck his nose in there a few times. (That’s) going to be who we have to be.”
Many of UK’s assists came in transition, where Kentucky totaled 25 fast-break points compared to just seven for the Aggies.
“They are an elite offensive transition team,” Hooten said afterward. He added, “A different guy can bring the ball up. That’s hard to guard.”
Kentucky also guarded. New Mexico State shot just 32.1 percent for the game. The Aggies missed nine of their 10 three-point attempts in the second half. They also turned it over 18 times. UK was credited with 13 steals. Wagner led the way with three. Sheppard, Dillingham and Justin Edwards, another freshman, each had two.
A first-half highlight came when Sheppard back-tipped a ball from a dribbling Aggie. Wagner then not only saved the bouncing basketball from going out of bounds, but slung it forward to a streaking Sheppard, for his first points as a Wildcat.
During his stellar high school career, the son of former Cats Jeff Sheppard and Stacey Reed, earned plenty of headlines for triple doubles. Defense? Not so much. Sheppard showed he can be disruptive, but then he said he has had no choice.
“When you go up against D.J. and Rob in practice every day, that’s no fun,” Sheppard said. “But it makes you better.”
“Reed,” said Calipari, “may have the best hands of anyone I’ve coached.”
Kentucky will have to get better, of course. Texas A&M-Commerce comes to town Friday. The real challenge comes next Tuesday when the Cats travel to Chicago to face No. 1-ranked Kansas in the Champions Classic. That’s the same Kansas that trounced North Carolina Central 99-56 in the Jayhawks’ opener Monday. And Kansas has a 7-footer who is playing in Hunter Dickinson, the transfer from Michigan who visited UK before choosing the Jayhawks.
There’s plenty of time to worry about it. As for now, Kentucky is 1-0. And looked good doing it.
