By Jamie H. Vaught
In UK’s first two games of the season with blowout victories over mid-majors Wright State (103-62) and Bucknell (100-72), the Wildcats have displayed a nice arsenal of weapons. Kentucky has many players who can do a lot of damage with scoring, rebounding, passing and stealing, and they play unselfish basketball.
“We have so many guys that can be major contributors,” said first-year Kentucky coach Mark Pope in a post-game news conference Saturday evening following his team's 28-point win over Bucknell.
Against Bucknell, the Wildcats, playing in a 10-man rotation, featured five players scoring in double-figures. Ten players scored at least five points. Sparked by six (of eight) three-pointers, Koby Brea hit a game-high 20 points along with six rebounds.
Leading the passing attack was senior Kerr Kriisa who had eye-popping 12 assists in only 21 minutes of action.
Said Kriisa, “I don’t really play for my stats. I just got to thank my teammates. They make the shots that I pass, and I don’t have much to add. I don’t play for stats though.”
Leading the rebounding attack was 7-foot center Amari Williams who had his second double-double of the season with 13 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Overall, the Cats grabbed 57 rebounds, including 22 offensive boards.
“We have been talking about it all week and after the last three games,” said Ansley Almonor of his team’s focus on rebounding. “We haven’t been doing what we should be doing on the board. So that has been an emphasis in practice and even before the game today we talked about it. That was something we wanted to go out there and dominate today and we did.”
Almonor finished the game with nine points in 14 minutes.
Pope said he was really pleased with his team’s rebounding improvement.
“I'm really proud of our guys,” said Pope. “As a coach it's a blessing, I'm telling you. It's a gift as a coach to have guys that are curious and guys that are humble and guys that want to get better. We don't use the words curious very often and we don't talk about humility very often.
“But we have a ton of that on our team. For these guys to respond to a challenge. We have been kind of sitting on this for maybe 10 days. Like ahh, we are just not getting to where we need to get on the glass. And for these guys to come up and put up almost 60 rebounds today is incredibly gratifying as a coach. It's a really important step for us as a team. And we are trying to get to 100. Has there ever been a game with 100 rebounds? Is that true? 100 rebounds?”
Yes, Kentucky did it in 1964 with 108 rebounds – a national record that still stands -- against Ole Miss with All-American Cotton Nash grabbing 30 boards.
“Oh, man," said Pope, continuing the conversation. "I'm usually really good at being hyperbolic. Apparently, I wasn't even close. Well, I was kind of being sarcastic about 100. Maybe that needs to be our goal. Nonetheless, I'm really proud of our guys man. The very first possession, we missed two jumpers in a row and got two offensive rebounds. I thought our guys were really good throughout the game being super aggressive. You think about our fours and fives. We had four guys that are playing the bulk of the minutes, the four and the five. They all have three or more offensive rebounds. And that's pretty cool. Really a tremendous effort by those guys.”
By the way, Jaxson Robinson also had 14 points, four rebounds and tied the team best for steals with two. Andrew Carr (11 points) and Otega Oweh (10 points) have reached double figures in each of the first two games.
Brea was asked what makes the team special.
“Just unselfishness,” he said. “I think we showed it throughout the four games (including two exhibition games) that we played so far, but every day, like we show it even more and more. It’s just the love that we have for each other, just being willing to sacrifice your own shot for an even better shot. And I think if we keep playing that way, then we’ll have a lot of success.”
Going into Tuesday night’s ESPN showdown with Duke at the Champions Classic in Atlanta, Pope is excited about the direction the Wildcats are heading.
“I like how our guys are responding,” he said. “This is the thing we've been sitting on, this rebound issue for like I said, 10 days now. And what an epic response, right? And just a commitment. The guys as a group said we are going to go fix this. It's been really impressive to see when we point our guys in a specific direction their willingness to commit to it and that bodes well for us being able to grow throughout the course of the season.
"You know, we are playing good basketball right now. We have a chance to grow into a great team. Now we have to earn it and we got to work on it and we got to get better every day. I have high hopes because our guys want to take some focus and run with it. They certainly did that tonight on the glass. It was awesome.”
Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author of six books about UK basketball, including recently-published “Forever Crazy About The Cats: An Improbable Journey of a Kentucky Sportswriter Overcoming Adversity.” Now a retired college professor who taught at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro., he is the editor and founder of KySportsStyle.com Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @KySportsStyle or reach him via email at KySportsStyle@gmail.com.
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