Kentucky Drops to Tar Heels 67-64; New Coach Will Stein Gets Rousing Ovation

By Jamie H. Vaught

KySportsStyle.com Magazine

LEXINGTON -- The highlight of Tuesday night’s Kentucky-North Carolina hoops showdown was not about basketball. Instead, it was the explosive introduction of UK’s new head football coach, Will Stein, during a media timeout in the first half when over 20,000 fans gave a rousing ovation.

Just 24 hours earlier, UK officially named Stein to replace embattled coach Mark Stoops, who ended his “mostly memorable” Wildcat tenure after 13 years, including two 10-win seasons. A Louisville native with lots of UK connections, Stein comes to Lexington from Oregon where he has served as the offensive coordinator for the past three seasons. Stein, 36, is expected to coach the Ducks through the national college football playoffs.

New Kentucky football coach Will Stein gets a warm welcome Tuesday night at Rupp Arena. (Photo by Jamie H. Vaught)

As for the 18th-ranked basketball Wildcats, they struggled with rebounding and three-point shooting as No. 16 North Carolina won a close matchup by a score of 67-64. It was another disappointing setback for Kentucky, which was looking for a signature win after two losses to ranked teams Louisville and Michigan State last month.

UK is now 5-3 for the season while North Carolina is 7-1. With the victory, the Tar Heels improved to 3-5 against the Cats in Rupp Arena. In the series, North Carolina’s all-time record against UK is 26-18.

UNC’s last trip to Rupp Arena was in mid-December of 2014 when UK defeated coach Roy Williams’ Tar Heels 84-70. As you may recall, it was the historic year of the 38-1 Wildcats who breezed through the SEC with an 18-0 regular season mark as well as the SEC Tournament championship and a Final Four trip to Indianapolis.

Both teams had starters who were sidelined with injuries, including UK juniors Jaland Lowe and Mouhamed Dioubate and UNC senior Seth Trimble.

The exciting contest featured 14 lead changes and nine ties.

On being outrebounded by the Tar Heels 41-30 with UNC getting 20 offensive rebounds, Kentucky coach Mark Pope said, "It is a huge part of the game.  We are actually one of the best defensive rebound percentage teams in the country. Credit to North Carolina.  They were elite on the glass. They have size and length and their front line really dominated and they had 12 offensive rebounds just with their starting 3, 4, and 5. It’s hard to win a game when you give up 20 offensive rebounds.

"I’m really frustrated with the rebounding tonight. Like I said, that’s credit to North Carolina and it’s uncharacteristic for us. It just hasn’t been us, but we just got crushed on the glass. It’s very, very disappointing tonight for sure. But I don’t think that’s who we are.  We probably had a little fatigue on the floor, which I’m going to have to find a way to kind of dig deeper into this rotation to get some quality minutes. That’s going to be something really important to us as we move forward."

On UK's upcoming games with Gonzaga, Indiana and St. John's, Pope commented, "We’ve got to go through the grieving process and get back to work.  I do think that we are making some strides in certain areas and I thought we had some positive play from several guys.  I feel like we found a little bit of ourselves in this game.  And so, there is no safety net right now.  We just have to get better. We will continue focusing on that and we need guys to step up and give us great effort and I’m excited about the games we have ahead.  Why play if you are not playing great teams, so I’m excited about it."

The Wildcats, who had a scoring drought in the second half, also struggled with their three-point shooting, making only 1 of 13 attempts for 7.7 percent.

"I think shots just weren’t falling for us, but we’re always going to shoot the next one, and we’re going to live or die with that scenario," said freshman Malachi Moreno, who had a team-high nine rebounds. He added eight points.

Otega Oweh led UK with 16 points.

Six-foot-10 freshman star Caleb Wilson led North Carolina with 12 rebounds while adding 15 points. Henri Veesaar, a 7-foot junior, also posted a double-double of team-high 17 points along with 10 rebounds.

The Wildcats will meet No. 11 Gonzaga in Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Friday night. Game time is 7 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CT in Nashville) and it will be televised on ESPN2.

Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author of seven books

about UK basketball, including newly published “Unforgettable Journey with the Cats:

Inside Kentucky Hoops Madness.” 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 KySportsStyle44@gmail.com.