J.D. Hall 
Rupp Arena
If you’re Mark Pope, that’s the way you want to start your career as the coach of
Kentucky! I know, I know, it was D11 Kentucky Wesleyan College, but they have given
some teams issues in exhibition games including beating Louisville last year. Yes, I
know Louisville was bad, but they were still a D1 team, with D1 athletes. That didn’t
matter though, as Kentucky would go on to win the game 123-52. Yes, you are reading
that right, Kentucky won tonight by 71 points!
I know you can’t take much from an exhibition game like this one, but there are still
some things to look for. First, you want to see how they move the ball on offense. Are
they standing around and playing 1-on-1 or are they playing as a team? That was
answered when they had 32 assists on 48 made baskets. That’s a huge number of
assists. Second, you want to see if they’re playing sloppy or being careless with the
ball? That was also a resounding yes with only 5 turnovers in the game. Finally, will they
shoot the ball? They may have answered that question the best because they shot 21-
42 from behind the 3 point line. That number would’ve tied the school record set against
North Carolina in 1989.
It was a balanced attack, with 8 players in double figures Led by Jaxson Robinson’s 19
points. He was an efficient 7-12 from the floor and 5-9 from behind the arc. Rounding
out the double-digit scorers were Otega Oweh with 18, Ansley Almonor with 15, Koby
Brea with 13, Amari Williams and Trent Noah with 12 a piece, Lamont butler with 11 and
Andrew Carr with 10. After a bit of a slow start, that included starting 3-12 from 3, the
Cats took control with a 23-2 run that ended any thought of a close game. The Cats
would end the half on a 56-20 extended run to go into the locker room up 60-24.
It was more of the same on offense in the 2 nd half. Kentucky would go on to hit
13-22 3s in the half and the biggest cheers came when Kentucky prep stars Travis
Perry and Trent Noah hit 3s in the 2 nd half. Noah wouldn’t stop with just one, however,
he would hit 3 more! After missing his first attempt, he wasn’t shy about shooting more
and he would hit 4 consecutive 3s in the final 5:29 of the game. Almonor would close
out the 3 point barrage with 1:10 on the clock and Collin Chandler would cap the scoring
for the night with a drive down the middle of the lane for a dunk.
It wasn’t all offense for Kentucky though. They would hold KWC to 32.8% from
the floor and 14.8% from behind the arc. They outrebounded KWC 43-31 and only
allowed KWC to get 10 assists on the night. The defensive effort was led by Butler, who
pestered the KWC guards all night. Kentucky would end the night with 12 steals and
Butler had 6 on his own. Butler even contributed 2 of the 5 blocks Kentucky had on the
night.
All in all, it was a good first look at the team for the fans. There may not be much
you can ultimately gain from a game like this and I’ve learned not to use exhibition
games and early season games to try and predict how a season will play out. Things
that I will take away from this game are, this team is going to be a lot of fun to watch
and they won’t be afraid to shoot the ball when they’re open. Coach Pope said in the
postgame presser that he wanted the team to shoot over 30 a game, tonight was a
good start to that.
In other words, Pope wants them to keep bombing away and I know the
Kentucky fans are going to love to see that this season.
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