Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 90-81 win over Alabama
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Game day: No. 4 Kentucky vs. No. 25 Alabama
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Alabama in Rupp Arena.
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Five things you need to know from the No. 4 Kentucky Wildcats’ 90-81 win over the No. 25 Alabama Crimson Tide in an SEC men’s basketball game at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center in downtown Lexington on Saturday:
1. Kellan Grady stars as UK plays without its top two “quarterbacks.” Kentucky star freshman guard TyTy Washington sat out Saturday’s game with an ankle injury. Junior point guard Sahvir Wheeler, the SEC leader in assists, also sat out after ending Tuesday night’s Tennessee game holding his wrist.
Yet UK won anyway, rallying from 12 down late in the first half (46-34 with 3:26 left) to beat a ranked opponent going away.
Forced into action as Kentucky’s primary ball handler by the absence of Wheeler and Washington, Kellan Grady took a star turn.
The graduate transfer, super-senior from Davidson showed he is capable of far more than his normal role for UK, designated three-point marksman.
Grady created shots off the dribble, hit contested treys and finished with 25 points, three rebounds, three assists and a steal.
Injuries and key players being absent have become a dominant theme of the 2021-22 Wildcats season.
This season in Southeastern Conference action, Kentucky has now had the top seven players in Calipari’s playing rotation available for complete games only five times out of 14 contests.
That’s why the biggest threat to UK’s NCAA Tournament aspirations is whether the Wildcats can keep their key players healthy and on the court for six straight March Madness games.
So even if it means Kentucky could take a hit to its potential NCAA tourney seeding by losing some regular-season games down the stretch, Calipari is wise to try to do whatever is necessary to get his roster healthy for March.
2. Tshiebwe watch. Kentucky star Oscar Tshiebwe finished the game with 21 points and 14 rebounds.
For the West Virginia transfer, it was his 21st double-double of the season, which is second in the nation.
Tshiebwe has now had a points-rebounds double-double in nine-straight games.
The 6-foot-9, 255-pound product of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, is climbing the UK single-season rebound chart.
Tshiebwe now has 411 rebounds on the season.
He needs seven boards to pass Julius Randle for the fifth-best rebounding season in Kentucky basketball history.
The top six rebounding seasons ever produced by UK players: 1. Bill Spivey, 1950-51, 567; 2. Cliff Hagan, 1951-52, 528; 3. Bob Burrow, 1954-55, 459; 4. Frank Ramsey, 1950-51, 434; 5. Julius Randle, 2013-14, 417; 6. Oscar Tshiebwe, 2021-22, 411.
3. A late-season UK weapon emerging. Pressed into the starting lineup by the backcourt injuries, UK forward Jacob Toppin went for 13 points, six rebounds and three assists.
The 6-9, 200-pound junior is quietly putting together an impressive run of games as the regular season winds down.
In the last three contests in which he has played (an ankle injury knocked him out of the home win over Florida), Toppin is averaging 11.3 points and five rebounds.
4. Alabama fails to end a Lexington futility mark. Kentucky’s victory denied Alabama a second-consecutive victory over the Wildcats in Lexington. Bama walloped UK 85-65 in Rupp Arena last season.
In a series that began in 1923, the Crimson Tide have never beaten Kentucky two straight in Lexington.
5. A UK basketball homecoming. With the NBA All-Star Game allowing some ex-Wildcats in pro basketball to journey back to Lexington, Kentucky turned the Alabama game into something of a hoops homecoming.
New York Knicks guard Immanuel Quickley drew a humongous roar from the Rupp Arena crowd as “the Y” in the spelling out of “Kentucky.”
Other ex-Cats were shown on the Rupp Arena video boards throughout the game. Among the former Kentucky players I saw on the video boards (and I apologize if I missed anyone) were:
Dan Issel, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Erik Daniels, Deron Feldhaus, Jared Prickett, Cory Sears, Dale Brown, JP Blevins, Bo Lanter, Ramel Bradley, Lukasz Obrzut, Henry Thomas, Daniel Orton, Jarrod Polson, Todd Svoboda, Reggie Warford, Jack Givens, Jonathan Davis, Julius Mays, Wayne Turner and Dominique Hawkins.
This story was originally published February 19, 2022 at 3:22 PM.
