Kentucky’s indispensable player comes through for the Wildcats yet again
As Kentucky teetered on the verge of yet another late-game collapse, Davion Mintz feared he had just set himself up as UK’s goat.
With Kentucky clinging to a 77-75 lead over Auburn inside the final minute, Mintz declined to take an open three-point shot, then when the ball swung back to him, tried to drive through traffic into the lane.
Auburn’s Allen Flannigan stripped the ball, drove the court and scored a tying layup with 46 seconds to go.
“Oh man, I thought I’d cost us the game,” Mintz told the UK Sports Network’s postgame radio show.
In a season of struggle, Kentucky was now eyeball-to-eyeball with the internal doubts built up over a season in which closing out games — UK entered Saturday 2-5 in games decided by three points or fewer or in overtime — has been an exercise in self-defeat.
Fortunately for the Wildcats, the one guy on the Kentucky roster who has shown a penchant for making big shots was now motivated to make up for a miscue.
Mintz, taking a pass from point guard Devin Askew on the right wing, rose up and drained a cold-blooded three-pointer with 33 seconds to play that gave Kentucky the lead to stay.
So UK avoided becoming the first Wildcats team ever to lose three straight games in Rupp Arena with an 82-80 victory over Auburn (11-11, 5-8 SEC) on Saturday before a socially distanced crowd of 3,075.
“We’ve been making strides for three weeks, but (the UK players) have to have rewards,” Kentucky Coach John Calipari said. “ ... You’ve got to win somewhere.”
Down 36-30 at halftime after a sluggish first half, Kentucky (6-13, 5-7 SEC) won here because:
1.) It began the second half with the best stretch of offensive basketball the Wildcats have played this season. In the first 8:29 of the second half, UK hit nine of 13 shots, five of six three pointers and unleashed a 30-11 blitz on Auburn to seize a 60-47 lead.
Executing Calipari’s orders to play from the inside out, UK center Olivier Sarr assisted on the Cats’ first three-buckets of half two — and that allowed Kentucky to find an offensive rhythm rarely seen in 2020-21.
2.) The UK recruiting class of 2020 finally looked like a one-and-done-era Kentucky freshman class.
Isaiah Jackson (18 points, 11 rebounds and two blocked shots); Brandon Boston (17 points, 5-of-8 three-point shooting); and Askew (nine points, five rebounds, four assists and only two turnovers) were huge for UK.
3.) When the Wildcats were close to succumbing to the “oh no, here we go again” late-game collapse, UK got a dagger three-pointer from the one player on its roster who has shown the mettle to take and make pressure shots.
A 6-foot-3, 196-pound graduate transfer from Creighton, Mintz buried a three-pointer from the deep left corner with 47 seconds left that beat Vanderbilt 77-74 on Jan. 5.
It was Mintz, a Charlotte, N.C., product, who drilled a trey with 14 seconds left Tuesday night that put Kentucky ahead of Arkansas 80-79 in a game that, ultimately, slipped away 81-80.
On Saturday, Mintz followed his crucial turnover with a game-turning trey.
“That’s a big play for this team,” Calipari said, “and it’s a big play for Davion.”
In the big picture, the question is whether Kentucky as a team can find redemption after a slog of a season.
Facing an unprecedented level of adversity for a UK team due both to the pandemic and all the losing they have done, the 2020-21 Cats have earned respect for not succumbing to negativity and continuing to fight.
But to fully flip the narrative of their season from disappointing to stirring, Kentucky needs the SEC to decline the option the NCAA just granted leagues to not hold conference tournaments next month.
Given the financial importance of the 2021 NCAA Tournament to the overall financial health of college sports, leagues may decide not to run the coronavirus risk of bringing all their teams together so close to the Big Dance.
If there is an SEC tourney, the Cats would then need to put together an underdog run that ended with cutting down nets.
“I want this team to finish and be something people talk about for the next 20 years,” Calipari said. “I’m trying to get them to believe what I believe. And I am trying to motivate them that way. ... This may be one of those years, if we keep this going, that I talk about ‘This was the greatest year for me ever.’”
The odds of a Hollywood ending at the end of this unusually trying Kentucky season are long.
But if it happens, UK fans will look upon Davion Mintz following his potentially goat-making turnover with the three-pointer that beat Auburn as the turning point.
Said Mintz: “I kind of redeemed myself.”
He totally did.
This story was originally published February 13, 2021 at 5:39 PM.
