Five things you need to know from No. 4 Kentucky’s 90-89 OT win over No. 7 Gonzaga
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Game day: No. 4 Kentucky 90, No. 7 Gonzaga 89 (OT)
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Gonzaga in Seattle.
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Five things you need to know from No. 4 Kentucky’s 90-89 overtime win over No. 7 Gonzaga in men’s college basketball’s “Battle in Seattle”:
1. What a start for Mark Pope. In his first nine games as Kentucky coach, Pope has broken a four-game UK losing skid in the Champions Classic with his team rallying from 10 down to beat Duke.
Pope has now also broken a five-game UK losing streak in top 10 vs. top 10 games with his team rallying from 16 points behind at halftime and 18 down in the second half to beat No. 7 Gonzaga.
As the saying goes, those results will play.
According to the ESPN2 game broadcast, Gonzaga had won 175 games in a row when it had at least a 10-point lead at the half.
2. A tale of two halves. Kentucky essentially no-showed the first half.
The Wildcats made only 12 of 36 first-half shots, were outrebounded 25-16 and trailed 50-34 at the intermission.
In half two, Kentucky turned the game upside down.
With an homage to UK basketball’s past, Mark Pope had the Cats deploy a 1-3-1 zone, a defense synonymous with the Adolph Rupp and Joe B. Hall coaching eras.
The zone — and Kentucky switching back and forth between zone and man-to-man, sometimes within possessions — seemed to take Gonzaga out of its offensive rhythm.
Down 18, 52-34, after the Bulldogs’ Michael Ajayi scored on a layup with 19:19 left in regulation, Kentucky uncorked a 21-6 run to pull within 58-55 and completely flip the game.
Otega Oweh told the UK Sports Network that Kentucky decided at halftime “we didn’t come out here to get punked.”
Well, UK got bullied in the first half.
After halftime, it was the Cats who imposed their will.
3. Cats win without both their “quarterbacks.” Making the Kentucky victory even more impressive, UK played the entire game without its starting point guard and the last 8:47 of regulation and the overtime without its other primary lead guard.
Mark Pope announced before the game that UK would be playing without starting point guard Lamont Butler. The 6-foot-2, 208-pound super senior, a transfer from San Diego State, tweaked an ankle in UK’s 70-66 loss at Clemson on Tuesday night in the SEC/ACC Challenge.
In addition to being a harrying perimeter defender, Butler is averaging 12.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.5 steals.
With Butler sidelined, Kentucky started former West Virginia and Arizona guard Kerr Kriisa at the point. Though it was Kriisa’s first start at Kentucky, he has 93 prior college starts from his time at Arizona (70 starts) and West Virginia (23).
Kriisa was playing well, until the Cats lost him, too. The Kentucky guard had the ball with the Wildcats down 63-59 with 8:47 left in the game. Kriisa appeared to suffer a lower leg injury, lost his balance and tried to get rid of the ball to prevent a turnover.
Instead, Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard picked the ball up and raced to the other end to score.
Kriisa came out of the game and never returned.
With both its primary ball handlers out, Kentucky turned to wing guard Jaxson Robinson to run the point.
Robinson turned in an inspirational effort.
The 6-foot-6, 192-pound super senior had 18 points, three rebounds, five assists — and no turnovers.
With Kentucky clinging to an 88-86 lead in the final 20 seconds of the overtime and the shot clock running down, Robinson drove left, then shot a 10-foot runner.
The shot went in with 14 seconds left and ultimately supplied UK with its winning margin.
4. UK balance carries the day. On a team that does not have a star, balance remains Kentucky’s super power.
That strength was on vivid display in Seattle.
As he did in the comeback win over Duke, Andrew Carr played big for the Wildcats. The Wake Forest transfer had 19 points, seven rebounds and three assists.
In addition to Jaxson Robinson’s 18 points and five assists (see above), the Wildcats also got 13 points, six boards and three assists from Otega Oweh.
The Kentucky center position produced 22 points and 12 rebounds, with Amari Williams going for 12 points and three boards and Brandon Garrison supplying 10 points and nine rebounds.
Kerr Kriisa had eight points and Koby Brea and Ansley Almonor each chipped in five points.
5. Blue blood over “new blood.” Kentucky’s win over Gonzaga was a rare recent success for one of men’s college basketball’s traditional powers vs. Mark Few’s Zags.
Gonzaga fell to 10-2 since the start of the 2019-20 season in head-to-head matchups vs. old-school hoops powers Duke (Zags are 0-1), Kansas (2-0), Kentucky (2-1), Michigan State (1-0), North Carolina (1-0) and UCLA (4-0).
This story was originally published December 8, 2024 at 1:00 AM.
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