Five things you need to know from UK’s 77-71 SEC Tournament win over Vanderbilt
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Game day: No. 5 Kentucky 77, Vanderbilt 71
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Friday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Vanderbilt at the SEC Tournament in Tampa, Fla.
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Five things you need to know from the No. 3-seed Kentucky Wildcats’ 77-71 win over the No. 11-seed Vanderbilt Commodores in an SEC Tournament quarterfinals men’s basketball game at Amalie Arena (basketball capacity 20,500) in Tampa, Fla., on Friday night:
1. Kentucky guards come up big. After Vanderbilt pulled within 59-58 on a layup by Rodney Chatman with 7:12 left, the UK backcourt took the game over.
Sahvir Wheeler sank a 15-footer off a pass from Davion Mintz to give Kentucky a three-point lead with 6:04 left.
UK freshman star TyTy Washington then went on a personal 8-2 run. Washington hit back-to-back treys, then followed that with a floater off a nifty feed from Wheeler.
Another floater from Wheeler put Kentucky ahead 71-63 with 2:45 left and that provided UK just enough cushion to survive a determined Vanderbilt upset bid.
Washington finished with 25 points, his first 20-point scoring game since he had 28 against Tennessee on Jan. 15.
“I’ve kind of been in a little slump,” Washington said on the UK Radio postgame program. “I was just happy to see the ball going in.”
Though he shot only 4-of-13, Wheeler had eight points, six rebounds and 11 assists.
Sixth man Davion Mintz also played a major role in the victory. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound super-senior had 10 points and five assists while also effectively defending Vanderbilt star — and longtime UK nemesis — Scotty Pippen Jr.
Mintz was a team-best plus-19 in the plus/minus stat.
2. Pippen Jr. watch. Vanderbilt’s star junior point guard entered Friday’s night’s game with a unique distinction: In six previous games against Kentucky, the 6-3, 185-pound Los Angeles product had scored more points vs. the Wildcats in each successive game.
As a freshman, Pippen Jr. went for 12 points in his first contest vs. Kentucky, then had 13 in the second meeting.
Pippen Jr.’s sophomore season saw him hit the Cats with 18 and 21 points, respectively.
This year, Pippen Jr. had 32 points vs. UK in Nashville and followed that up with a 33-point showing in Rupp Arena.
On Friday night, Kentucky — with Mintz leading the way — finally flipped the script on Pippen Jr.
The Vanderbilt star was held to 2-of-17 shooting, 1-of-7 treys, and finished with only 10 points.
At least three different times, Pippen Jr. attempted three-point shots that became air balls.
That would seem to suggest that Pippen Jr., who carries a heavy load for Vandy, may have run out of gas in the second half of the Commodores’ third SEC Tournament game in three days.
Pippen Jr. is now 0-7 against Kentucky as a Vanderbilt player. Overall, Vandy has lost 13 straight to the Cats.
3. Oscar watch. Kentucky big man Oscar Tshiebwe logged his 14th straight double-double, going for 12 points and 14 rebounds. For good measure, the West Virginia transfer also blocked five shots.
“Oscar says he’s not a machine, but he sure plays like one, man,” Washington told the UK Radio Network.
Tshiebwe now has 26 double-doubles this season, tying Dan Issel’s single-season UK record.
With 488 rebounds in 2021-22, Tshiebwe needs 41 more boards to pass Cliff Hagan (528 in 1951-52) for second place on the UK single-season rebounding list and 80 to pass Bill Spivey (567 in 1950-51) for first.
4. UK evens SEC tourney mark with Vandy. With its victory, Kentucky snapped a two-game losing streak vs. Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament and improved its all-time record against the Commodores in the league tourney to 5-5.
Until Friday night, Vandy was the only school with a winning record vs. UK in the SEC Tournament.
5. A crucial victory for UK’s NCAA Tournament hopes. You may ask what winning a quarterfinals game in the SEC tourney has to do with the more important tournament to come?
If trends hold, would you believe, everything?
Since the NCAA Tournament was expanded to (at least) 64 teams in 1985, no team that has gone on to win the NCAA championship has failed to win at least one game in its conference tournament.
SEC Tournament top-seed Auburn, upset Friday afternoon 67-62 by No. 8-seed Texas A&M, is now on the wrong side of that history.
Kentucky is not.
This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 10:49 PM.
