Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 72-63 win at South Carolina
Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 72-63 win at South Carolina:
1. Cats grind one out for Pope. On Tuesday, hours before Kentucky and South Carolina were to tip off, the Southeastern Conference announced that it had fined UK coach Mark Pope “for post-game conduct and comments related to officiating” in the immediate aftermath of UK’s 75-74 loss at Auburn last Saturday night.
With UK clinging to a one-point lead in the final seconds at Auburn, a controversial offensive foul call on Wildcats guard Collin Chandler gave the ball back to the Tigers, who scored the game-winning basket with 1.2 seconds remaining.
After what I would deem a passive-aggressive rant in his postgame news conference that conveyed displeasure without specifically identifying why he was upset, Pope was subsequently overhead telling UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart “Mitch, if those M-effers try to fine me, screw ’em. Because I did not say a word about how they cheated us.”
Against South Carolina on Tuesday, the Kentucky players won a grinder for their coach.
UK did not play especially well, but the Wildcats showed the grit to go on the road and get a win Kentucky really needed.
On a night when points were hard to come by, Denzel Aberdeen hit four 3-pointers and had a team-high 19 points.
Mo Dioubate came off the Kentucky bench and scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half.
Freshman big man Malachi Moreno went for eight points and 11 boards.
Andrija Jelavic (11 points) and Collin Chandler (10) also made notable offensive contributions for the Cats, the latter sinking a dagger 3-pointer with 1:51 left that put UK up 64-57..
2. Kentucky’s turnovers. Through UK’s first 14 SEC games, the statistic that has most closely correlated to whether the Wildcats win or lose has been turnovers.
Going into play Tuesday night, UK had turned the ball over an average of 8.6 times in its eight league wins.
Conversely, Kentucky had committed an average of 13.5 turnovers in its six SEC defeats. In its three game losing streak, UK had lost the ball 14 times at Florida, 13 times against Georgia and 14 times at Auburn.
Against South Carolina, turnovers were again a UK problem. The Wildcats turned it over nine times in the first half alone, and finished the game with 15 miscues.
The Wildcats were able to survive the turnovers this time because South Carolina struggled offensively throughout much of the game.
3. No double figures for Oweh. For the first time this season, Kentucky star Otega Oweh was held under 10 points. The UK senior finished with eight points on 3-of-13 shooting as South Carolina did a good job of keeping Oweh from playing downhill.
Oweh missed a dunk late in the game that would have gotten him into double figures. This was only the fourth time in Oweh’s two-season Kentucky career that he has failed to score at least 10 points.
The Kentucky star entered play Tuesday night off back-to-back career-high performances of 28 (vs. Georgia) and 29 (at Auburn) points.
Oweh had scored 20 points or more in 11 of UK’s 14 SEC games prior to Tuesday night..
Oweh’s eight points give him 1,073 in a Kentucky uniform, moving him into a tie with Rex Chapman for 52nd on the all-time Wildcats scoring list.
4. Cats throw off the “Columbia hex.” Prior to its victory Tuesday night, Kentucky had lost three of its previous four and six of its prior 11 games against South Carolina in Columbia.
5. Cats avoid a four-game skid. With the victory at South Carolina, Kentucky averted what would have been the first four-game losing streak in the Mark Pope coaching era.
The last time a UK team lost four-straight remains in 2020-21, when John Calipari’s Cats lost four-straight from Jan. 26 through February 9 en route to a 9-16 final record.
This story was originally published February 24, 2026 at 9:05 PM.
