Five things you need to know from Kentucky men’s basketball’s 87-68 win over WKU
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Game day: No. 8 Kentucky 87, Western Kentucky 68
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Western Kentucky in Rupp Arena.
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Five things you need to know from No. 8 Kentucky’s 87-68 win over Western Kentucky in men’s NCAA college basketball at Rupp Arena on Tuesday night:
1. Cats prove they can win “ugly.” Much has been written in the liftoff of the Mark Pope coaching era about the aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball Kentucky plays.
There was little pretty about UK’s performance Tuesday night against a tough-minded WKU (3-3).
The 3-pointers were not falling for Kentucky. The Wildcats (6-0) hoisted 29 treys, but made only eight.
Free throws were a struggle for UK. Kentucky got to the charity stripe a whopping 42 times, but made only 29.
The normally frenetic-paced UK offensive attack even took a shot-clock violation at one point.
Yet, in spite of the uncharacteristic offensive slog, Kentucky won comfortably and showed some grit in doing so.
The Wildcats won the rebounding battle 54-41.
Kentucky held Western to 31.8 percent shooting (21 of 66) and 15.4 percent 3-point shooting (4 of 26).
If you wanted to see how UK would respond in a game in which things did not go as normal for the Cats, then Tuesday night was an encouraging showing.
2. Kentucky’s go-to guys. Sample size is small, of course, but in the two most competitive games of the UK season to date — the comeback upset of Duke in the Champions Classic and Tuesday’s grinder with WKU — the same two players came up big for the Cats.
Otega Oweh and Andrew Carr, the late-game stars vs. Duke, helped UK get past Western Kentucky on a night when the Kentucky long-range artillery was not dialed in.
The 6-foot-4, 215-pound Oweh scored nine points in each half and finished with 18 points and four rebounds.
Carr, too, scored nine in each half. The 6-11, 235-pound Wake Forest transfer produced the first double-double of his UK career with 18 points and 10 boards.
3. Mark Pope moving up a UK coaching list. Kentucky’s win pushed the Wildcats’ record to 6-0.
That lifted new UK head man Pope past Eddie Sutton and into third place on the list of Wildcats coaches who went the deepest into their first seasons before losing.
Sutton suffered his first loss as Kentucky coach in his sixth game, an 83-66 loss at Kansas on Dec. 14, 1985.
Still ahead of Pope are Adolph Rupp (first loss in 11th game) and John Calipari (first loss in 20th game)
4. Wildcats vs. Hilltoppers. For two tradition rich men’s basketball programs who share the same state, UK and WKU do not have much of a shared history.
Kentucky’s victory Tuesday night moves the Wildcats edge over the Hilltoppers in the head-to-head series to 6-2.
The first of Western’s two wins vs. UK came in the 1971 NCAA Tournament Mideast Region round of 16, a 107-83 demolition of the Cats in Athens, Georgia.
WKU’s other victory over Kentucky came in Rupp Arena on Nov. 15, 2001, a 64-52 upset of the No. 4 Wildcats in the NABC Classic.
5. UK vs. in-state foes. With its victory over Western Kentucky on Tuesday night, Kentucky is now 71-19 in head-to-head contests vs. the commonwealth’s other NCAA Division I programs.
Kentucky’s all-time record against in-state, D-I opponents:
▪ Bellarmine 1-0
▪ Eastern Kentucky 12-0
▪ Louisville 39-17
▪ Morehead State 11-0
▪ Murray State 0-0
▪ Northern Kentucky 2-0
▪ Western Kentucky 6-2
This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 8:58 PM.
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