Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s win over the Texas A&M Aggies
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Game day: Kentucky 76, Texas A&M 67
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Texas A&M at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
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Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 76-67 win over Texas A&M on Saturday at Rupp Arena.
1. Kentucky is in a whole different place right now
Just 10 short days ago this Kentucky basketball team was left for dead. It had been spanked by 26 points at Alabama. It had lost on its own home floor to arguably the SEC’s worst team in South Carolina. The fans were upset. (Boy, were they.) The players were upset. The coach was upset. There were meetings upon meetings upon more meetings.
“Two of our assistants were in (one players’ meeting),” John Calipari said on Saturday. “They said it got pretty emotional.”
Then the Cats went to Knoxville and upset fifth-ranked Tennessee on the Vols’ home floor. Three days later, UK roared back in the second half to knock off Georgia. Then Saturday, against a Texas A&M team that entered the game 5-0 in the SEC, Calipari’s club did the things it had to do to win its third straight game while snapping the Aggies’ seven-game victory streak.
“We’re all on the same page now,” UK center Oscar Tshiebwe said.
The new unity and changed fortunes were on full display down Saturday’s stretch. There had been 11 lead changes before Kentucky took the lead for good, 56-53, on a three-pointer out of the left corner by Antonio Reeves at the 8:27 mark. Less than a minute later, A&M’s Henry Coleman accidentally tipped in a UK missed shot into the Cats’ basket for a five-point UK advantage at 58-53.
After that, Coach Buzz Williams’ Aggies cut the UK lead to 59-57, then 63-61, then 67-63, then 69-65 but could never get over the hump. Kentucky scored on seven of its final eight possessions. Big shot followed big shot. At 63-61, Cason Wallace scored on a reverse layup. At 67-63, Reeves hit his second straight runner. At 69-65, CJ Fredrick nailed a jumper from the circle with 48 seconds left.
After that, UK went 6 of 7 from the foul line in its final three possessions to close it out. Fredrick made both ends of a bonus with 27.6 seconds left. Wallace hit a pair of three throws with 19.1 left. And Jacob Toppin made one of two with 11.3 seconds to seal the victory.
After a 1-3 start in SEC play, Kentucky is now 4-3 heading into Tuesday night’s game at Vanderbilt. There’s still a long way to go in this conference campaign, but these Cats are in a much different place now than they were less than two weeks ago.
2. Buzz Williams’ strategy nearly worked
In Alabama’s 78-52 thumping of Kentucky two weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Crimson Tide Coach Nate Oats had his players double- and triple-team Tshiebwe down low, guessing Kentucky couldn’t make enough perimeter shots to win. Oates guessed right. The Cats went 5-for-20 beyond the arc on the way to getting spanked.
A&M’s Williams used a similar strategy Saturday. The Aggies play physical basketball. And by the 7:20 mark of the first half, the same Oscar Tshiebwe who had scored 37 points and grabbed 24 rebounds in the win over Georgia had a seat on the UK bench with two fouls, three rebounds and zero points.
In fact, Tshiebwe did not score his first points of the game until the 13:54 mark of the second half. He finished the afternoon with seven points to go with a game-high 17 rebounds, 14 of which came in the second half. Oscar had an impact on the game, but he was not as, Calipari pointed out later, the most impactful player in the game. That honor (and belt) belonged to Antonio Reeves.
What was different between two weeks ago and Saturday was that Kentucky made Williams pay for his strategy. The Cats were 11 of 32 from three-point range for 34.4 percent. That’s the most three-pointers Kentucky has attempted in game since going 12 of 33 against Chattanooga on Dec. 17, 2011.
The 11 makes might not sound like much, especially in game when Fredrick was 2 of 10 and Cason Wallace was 1 of 7 from beyond the arc. But thanks in large part to Reeves, who was 5 of 11 from three, Kentucky made just enough threes to make them count.
The shots Kentucky missed, Kentucky rebounded. It ended up with 18 offensive rebounds. In fact, the Cats won the boards at both end of the floor to end up with a 38-31 edge on the glass. UK snatched 21 defensive boards, compared to just four offensive rebounds for the Aggies.
“We have done a good job in offensive rebound percentage,” Williams said afterward. “I think we were first in our league. We really bad that category today.”
The rebounding, plus Texas A&M’s 16 turnovers allowed Kentucky to take 18 more shots (67 to 49) than did the Aggies. Texas A&M shot a higher percentage — 49.0 to UK’s 40.3 — but not high enough to make up for the difference in attempts.
“It’s hard to overcome when a team shoots 18 more balls than you do,” Williams said.
3. A shoutout to shot-maker Antonio Reeves
Speaking of Reeves, the Illinois State transfer has developed into Kentucky’s most dependable scorer. His game-high 23 points against the Aggies was his fifth straight game in which he’s reached double figures. He was a lone bright spot with 20 points at Alabama, before scoring 13 against South Carolina, 18 at Tennessee and 11 in the comeback win over Georgia.
It was Reeves who scored 11 points in five minutes at Tennessee to help the Cats turned a 41-41 tie into a 58-50 lead with 3:26 left. It was Reeves who nailed a jumper from the left of the key with 11:25 left to break a 57-57 tie with Georgia at the 11:25 mark. UK never trailed again. And it was Reeves who hit a pair of clutch runners against A&M.
The first came off the left wing, a driving bank shot that put Kentucky up 67-61 with 2:01 left. The second came from the right side, a perfect runner that extended the Cats lead to 69-63 with 1:32 remaining.
Said Calipari, “Antonio, those two baskets late. You need somebody to just go get a basket and he did it.”
Yes he did.
This story was originally published January 21, 2023 at 6:53 PM.
