Five things you need to know from UK basketball’s 99-53 exhibition win over Kentucky State
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Game day: No. 16 Kentucky 99, Kentucky State 53
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Thursday night’s men’s exhibition basketball game between Kentucky and Kentucky State in Rupp Arena.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 99-53 win over Kentucky State in a men’s college basketball exhibition game at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center:
1. Edwards’ torrid start. Kentucky freshman wing Justin Edwards exploded from the starting block.
The 6-foot-8, 203-pound Philadelphia product hit his first five field-goal attempts and scored 10 points in the first 3:48 of the game.
Edwards was doing all his work at the rim.
Among those first five baskets, the UK frosh scored on a follow shot, a layup (off a nifty pass from Tre Mitchell), a drive and a layup, another drive and a dunk and a fast-break basket.
For the game, Edwards finished 8-of-12 from the field, 1-of-3 on three-point shots and had 17 points and nine rebounds,.
2. Cats are both generous and stingy. In opening a commanding 50-20 halftime lead over NCAA Division II Kentucky State, UK had a sterling assist-to-turnover ratio.
Of Kentucky’s 20 first-half field goals (the Cats shot 20-of-36 in half one), 14 of the buckets came off of assists. Rob Dillingham and Tre Mitchell each had four assists in half one, D.J. Wagner had three and Reed Sheppard two for the Wildcats.
While Kentucky was prolifically sharing the basketball in the first half, the Wildcats were not according the same generosity to the visiting Thorobreds.
UK ended the first half with no turnovers.
In fact, Kentucky did not commit a turnover until there was only 10:57 left in the game when Adou Thiero tried to throw a bounce pass across the the lane that proved to be errant.
For the game, the Wildcats finished with 25 assists vs. six turnovers.
Leading the way on the assist train were Wagner with seven, Dillingham with six, and Mitchell and Antonio Reeves with four each.
3. You can count on Tre. After he had 22 points and nine boards in UK’s 92-69 win over Georgetown College in the Wildcats’ exhibition opener, West Virginia transfer Tre Mitchell came back with a double-double, 15 points and 10 rebounds, vs. KSU.
Mitchell hit 6 of 9 shots, 3 of 5 treys vs. the Thorobreds.
Over the two exhibition games combined, the 6-9, 231-pound super-senior from Pittsburgh shot a combined 15-of-21 overall, 7-of-10 on three-point tries.
4. Kentucky in exhibitions. UK’s win over Kentucky State ran the Wildcats’ all-time record in exhibition games to 152-12. The Cats have now won 31 exhibition games in a row.
Kentucky’s most recent defeat in an exhibition came on Aug. 17, 2014, a 63-62 loss to the Dominican Republic in Nassau, Bahamas.
As UK head man, John Calipari is 49-1 in exhibition games.
5. Wildcats vs. Thorobreds. With Thursday night’s win, Kentucky ran its mark versus Kentucky State in exhibition play to 4-0.
UK also beat KSU in exhibition play before the 2015-16 season (111-58), before the 2019-20 season (83-51) and before last season (111-53).
Kentucky and Kentucky State have played once in the regular season. On Dec. 15, 2001, the Wildcats blitzed the Thorobreds 118-63 at Rupp Arena behind 21 points from Marquis Estill and 18 from Tayshaun Prince.
This story was originally published November 2, 2023 at 8:59 PM.
