Five things you need to know from No. 8 Kentucky’s 81-69 win over No. 11 Texas A&M
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Game day: No. 8 Kentucky 81, No. 11 Texas A&M 69
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Texas A&M in Rupp Arena.
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Five things you need to know from No. 8 Kentucky’s 81-69 win over No. 11 Texas A&M in men’s SEC basketball at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center:
1. An ex-Aggie’s revenge. At UK men’s basketball Media Day, Jaxson Robinson smilingly told reporters he would be quite motivated against two SEC teams in particular.
In his first season of college basketball, Robinson played at Texas A&M in 2020-21. Robinson played in only 14 games for the Aggies, averaging 9.8 minutes and 2.1 points.
Suffice to say, if the UK super-senior felt he needed to prove a point with Buzz Williams and the Aggies in Rupp Arena on Tuesday night, he delivered his message loud and clear.
In a game where baskets were not easy to come by, Robinson had a game-high 22 points. The 6-foot-6, 192-pound product of Ada, Oklahoma, also had eight rebounds and two assists.
Robinson appeared to let Williams and A&M know about his success, too.
After Robinson sank a 3-pointer with 1:27 left in the first half, he was called for a Class A technical foul, apparently for taunting the Texas A&M bench.
When Robinson drained a trey with four seconds left in the first half to put UK ahead 35-32 at the intermission, he appeared to again razz Williams in front of the Aggies’ bench.
The other SEC team against whom Robinson presumably will have extra incentive is Arkansas. In 2021-22, Robinson appeared in 16 games for the Razorbacks. He averaged 10.2 minutes and 3.4 points for the Hogs.
Arkansas has been warned.
2. Oweh the consistent. Kentucky leading scorer Otega Oweh (15.6 points) entered Tuesday night’s game having scored in double figures in all 16 UK regular-season games.
Deep into Tuesday night’s game, the junior’s streak of double-figure scoring games looked to be in jeopardy.
Oweh had gone scoreless in the first half. He got off to a quick start in half two by cashing a pair of foul shots at 18:34, then scoring on a pair of emphatic dunks at 13:41 and 11:34.
However, some errant free-throw shooting seemed destined to cost Oweh his double-figure scoring run.
The 6-4, 215-pound Oweh missed a pair of foul shots with 11:15 left, then made only one of two at 4:32.
That left him with seven points, and that’s where he still stood inside the game’s final two minutes.
However, with Texas A&M fouling on purpose to stop the clock, Oweh drilled a pair of free throws with one minute left in the game, then came back with two more with 54 seconds left.
Just like that, he got to 11 points and extended his streak.
Before Tuesday, the closest Oweh had come to missing double figures came in the Wildcats’ second game on Nov. 9 when he finished with 10 points in UK’s 100-72 pummeling of Bucknell.
By way of comparison, Antonio Reeves (Kentucky’s leading scorer last year at 20.2 points a game for the season) made it nine straight games at the start of the 2023-24 campaign scoring in double figures before he was held to nine points in UK’s win against North Carolina.
It turned out to be the only game last season in which Reeves did not score in double figures.
3. Kentucky putting together an impressive résumé of top-20 wins. With Tuesday night’s win, Kentucky now has wins over the teams that began Tuesday ranked in the NET rankings at No. 2 (Duke), No. 5 (Florida), No. 10 (Gonzaga), No. 17 (Mississippi State) and No. 18 (Texas A&M).
4. Cats deny Buzz Williams a milestone. Kentucky’s victory snuffed out Texas A&M’s bid for a third straight win over UK. The Aggies defeated the Wildcats twice last season, 97-92 in overtime in College Station during the regular season and 97-87 in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals in Nashville.
Had A&M won Tuesday night, it would have made Aggies head man Buzz Williams the only active Southeastern Conference coach to have beaten Kentucky in three straight games.
To the credit of the Aggies, playing without star guard Wade Taylor IV, Texas A&M put up a game fight.
South Carolina head man Lamont Paris, whose Gamecocks beat UK 71-68 in Lexington in 2022-23 and 79-62 last season in Columbia, will try to earn a third consecutive win over the Wildcats on Feb. 8 in Rupp Arena.
5. UK coaches at the 17-game mark. Tuesday night’s game was Mark Pope’s 17th as Kentucky coach.
This is how all UK head men starting with Adolph Rupp have fared in their first 17 games on the Wildcats bench:
▪ 1930-31: Adolph Rupp 15-2.
▪ 1972-73: Joe B. Hall 10-7.
▪ 1985-86: Eddie Sutton 15-2.
▪ 1989-90: Rick Pitino 8-9.
▪ 1997-98: Tubby Smith 15-2.
▪ 2007-08: Billy Gillispie 8-9.
▪ 2009-10: John Calipari 17-0.
▪ 2024-25: Mark Pope 14-3.
This story was originally published January 14, 2025 at 9:50 PM.
