Five things you need to know from No. 19 Kentucky’s 95-64 Senior Night rout of LSU
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Game day: No. 19 Kentucky 95, LSU 64
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and LSU in Rupp Arena.
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Five things you need to know from No. 19 Kentucky’s emphatic 95-64 win over LSU on Senior Night at Rupp Arena:
1. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye: When Mark Pope inherited a Kentucky men’s basketball roster with no returning scholarship players upon his hiring last spring as UK men’s hoops coach, he had no choice but to hit the transfer portal hard to field a viable roster in 2024-25.
One of the outcomes that arose from that reality is that Kentucky had five super-seniors and one old-fashioned senior to recognize on its annual Senior Night. (UK would have have a sixth super-senior to honor but the foot injury suffered by Kerr Kriisa on Dec. 7 that knocked him out for the season will apparently yield another season of eligibility for the Estonian guard).
Interestingly, Pope did not start all seniors, staying with junior standout Otega Oweh in the starting lineup. But all five of UK’s departing seniors who were healthy enough to play Tuesday night were in the scoring column long before halftime arrived.
This is how each Wildcat honored Tuesday night fared in their final game at Rupp Arena in a UK uniform:
▪ Ansley Almonor: The Fairleigh Dickinson transfer shook off being the only senior who could play that did not start by hitting 6 of 7 shots, 3 of 4 treys, and setting a season high in scoring with 15 points.
▪ Koby Brea: The ex-Dayton Flyers standout hit 2 of 7 shots, both of them 3-point tries, and finished with six points, one rebound and an assist.
▪ Lamont Butler: The former San Diego State standout had five points, five rebounds, five assists and two steals.
▪ Andrew Carr: The former Wake Forest standout — who began his college career at Delaware — had eight points and six rebounds.
▪ Jaxson Robinson: Mark Pope announced after UK’s loss to No. 1 Auburn on Saturday that Robinson would require surgery to repair his injured wrist and was out for the remainder of the season.
The 6-foot-6, 192-pound super-senior, who followed Pope to Kentucky from BYU, averaged 13.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.7 assist in his one season as a Wildcat.
▪ Amari Williams: The former Drexel star had nine points, six rebounds, three assists, two steals and a blocked shot.
2. UK coaches of the Rupp Arena era on Senior Night: With Kentucky’s win over LSU, the Wildcats are now 43-6 in Senior Night/Day games in the Rupp Arena era.
Below are the records of each Kentucky head man in Senior Night/Day contests at Rupp:
▪ Joe B. Hall: 9-0.
▪ Eddie Sutton: 4-0.
▪ Rick Pitino: 7-1.
▪ Tubby Smith: 9-1.
▪ Billy Gillispie: 1-1.
▪ John Calipari: 12-3.
▪ Mark Pope: 1-0.
3. Is Kentucky getting a much-needed additional contributor? Otega Oweh (24 points, eight rebounds, three assists) and Brandon Garrison (15 points, four assists, three steals) played big for Kentucky vs. LSU.
But the most interesting non-senior contribution for UK came from freshman guard Collin Chandler. The 6-5, 202-pound Chandler had a career high 11 points, four rebounds and four assists in 18 minutes of playing time.
With UK’s depth thinned out by the season-ending injuries to Jaxson Robinson and Kerr Kriisa, it’s hard to overestimate what it would mean to Kentucky moving forward if Chandler could become a reliable backcourt sub.
4. Another reunion with an ex-Cat. Former Kentucky players have killed the Cats in 2024-25.
Ex-UK big man Aaron Bradshaw got that trend rolling when he hit 5 of 6 shots and scored 11 points to help Ohio State rock Kentucky 85-65 in the CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 21.
John Calipari brought three of his former UK players back to Rupp Arena when Arkansas visited on Feb. 1 and the trio of ex-Wildcats were huge in the Razorbacks’ 89-79 upset of UK.
Former Kentucky forward Adou Thiero hit the Cats with 21 points and eight rebounds. Ex-UK point guard D.J. Wagner contributed 17 points and eight assists, while one-time Cats big man Zvonimir Ivisic hit 4 of 7 3-pointers and had 14 points and four boards for the Hogs.
On Tuesday night, ex-UK forward and current LSU starter Daimion Collins got another shot at his former team. Unlike the vigorous booing the ex-Cats got who came back to Rupp Arena playing for Arkansas, Collins received a warm reception from the crowd when introduced in the LSU starting lineup.
Collins, a 6-9, 200-pound junior from Atlanta, Texas, played for Kentucky in 2021-22 and 2022-23, scoring a combined 125 points and grabbing 102 rebounds as a Wildcat.
The LSU forward came back to Lexington averaging 8.6 points and 4.4 rebounds and making 59% of his shots.
On Tuesday night, Collins made only 1 of 4 shots to finish with two points. He did grab five rebounds and block three shots, including an especially emphatic block of a shot in the lane by UK center Amari Williams.
5. Home records of UK coaches in their first seasons at Rupp Arena. With the victory over LSU, Kentucky finished its first home season under Mark Pope with a 15-3 record at Rupp Arena.
Starting with Adolph Rupp, this is the home record of all UK coaches in their first seasons:
▪ Adolph Rupp, 1930-31: 9-0.
▪ Joe B. Hall, 1972-73: 11-2.
▪ Eddie Sutton, 1985-86: 18-0 (includes three SEC Tournament victories at Rupp Arena).
▪ Rick Pitino, 1989-90: 13-2.
▪ Tubby Smith, 1997-98: 9-3.
▪ Billy Gillispie, 2007-08: 14-4.
▪ John Calipari, 2009-10: 18-0.
▪ Mark Pope, 2024-25: 15-3.
This story was originally published March 4, 2025 at 9:00 PM.
