Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s crushing 75-74 loss at Auburn
Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 75-74 loss at Auburn:
1. Kentucky meets another desperate team. On Tuesday night, UK faced a Georgia team that had lost five of its prior six games.
The Wildcats came nowhere close to matching the Bulldogs’ desperation in what became a dispiriting 86-78 loss at Rupp Arena.
On Saturday, Kentucky took on an Auburn squad mired in a five-game losing skid.
This time, UK matched the desperation of its opponent.
In a back-and-forth game, Kentucky appeared to be in position to win after Denzel Aberdeen drained a pair of free throws with 18.8 seconds left to give the Wildcats a 74-71 lead.
What followed was a UK nightmare.
Auburn pulled within 74-73 after Tahaad Pettiford was fouled on the drive and drained two free throws with 14.3 seconds left.
On the ensuring inbounds play, UK’s Collin Chandler was called for an offensive foul. It was Chandler’s fifth turnover of the game.
With the game hanging in the balance, Auburn got three shots at winning.
Mo Dioubate blocked a layup by Auburn’s Kevin Overton. KeShawn Murphy’s follow attempt missed.
However, Auburn’s Elyjah Freeman did not miss on Auburn’s third attempt. His follow with 1.2 seconds left won the game.
UK wasted an epic performance from Otega Oweh (see below), and the Wildcats let a game in which they led by three inside the final 20 seconds slip away.
2. Another double-dlgit-loss season for Kentucky. With its defeat, UK fell to 17-10 on the season.
It is the fourth straight season, the fifth out of six, and the sixth out of nine, in which the Wildcats have had at least 10 losses.
Many UK backers regard seasons with 10 losses or more as an indicator of program slippage.
Even allowing for the fact that teams play more games now than in the past which makes double-digit-loss seasons more likely, there is no question that Kentucky is in the midst of one of the least-successful stints in its men’s basketball history.
3. UK foul shooting. Kentucky made only 12 of 20 free throws (60%) in the loss to Georgia. It was the eight time in 13 SEC games in which the Wildcats fared to make 70% of their foul shots.
At Auburn, UK shot a good percentage —14 of 17, 82.7%
The problem was, Kentucky did not get enough attempts.
Auburn, meanwhile, hit 20 of 24 foul shots.
4. Oweh confronts a team that previously contained him. Kentucky star Otega Oweh entered Saturday night’s game having scored in double figures in all 26 of UK’s games in 2025-26 and in 59 of his 62 career games as a Wildcat.
One of the three games in which Oweh failed to reach at least 10 points came against Auburn last season.
When then-No. 1 Auburn blitzed Kentucky 94-78 last season at Rupp Arena, a foul-plagued Oweh played only 20 minutes, took only three shots and ended the game with four points.
On Saturday night, Oweh was in double figures by halftime. The 6-4, 220-pound senior had 12 points in the first half.
Even as he battled foul trouble throughout half two, Oweh scored 17 points in the second half and finished with a career-high 29.
Oweh now has 1,065 career points at Kentucky. He has moved up to 54th on the all-time Kentucky scoring list. Dirk Minniefield (1,069), and Rex Chapman (1,073) are next ahead of Oweh.
5. All-time wins snapshot. On Saturday afternoon, Cincinnati achieved one of the rarest things in sports — the road blowout upset — with an 84-68 victory over No. 8 Kansas Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
So by losing at Auburn, the Wildcats (17-10) — who entered this season with an eight-game edge —missed a chance to gain a game back on the Jayhawks (20-7) in the men’s college basketball all-time wins race.
Through games of Saturday, the all-time wins ledger remains: 1. Kentucky 2,439; 2. Kansas’s 2,434.
This story was originally published February 21, 2026 at 11:10 PM.
