No. 24 Kentucky Escapes Upset Bid on Alex Wilkins' Late 3, Tops Northern Arizona 78-77
By Jamie H. Vaught
KySportsStyle.com Magazine
As far as the rabid Big Blue Nation is concerned, Kentucky's Friday night matchup with 30.5-point underdog Northern Arizona should have been a very comfortable victory or a blowout for the Wildcats.
Instead, we saw the No. 24 Wildcats—who had a 45-37 lead at the half—struggle in the second half as Northern Arizona, projected to finish last in the 11-team Big Sky Conference in preseason polls by the coaches and media, raced to a five-point advantage. Then, with eight seconds left, Kentucky, down by two points, came up with a dramatic three-point jumper by 6-foot-6 guard Alex Wilkins to win the game 78-77 with 2.2 seconds remaining.
And the Lumberjacks were aggressive on the boards, outrebounding UK by a 32-20 margin, with only one offensive rebound by the Wildcats.
In addition to Wilkins, who had 14 points, Milan Momcilovic and Malachi Moreno scored 14 points as well. Ousmane N’Diaye pumped in 11 points.
Said Kentucky coach Mark Pope, "Huge credit to Northern Arizona. They have been on the road, I think this is their 4th straight game and they came to compete tonight. I thought they did a terrific job. Played well. Made shots. Were tough. Did an unbelievable job on the defensive glass for the whole night. And made a real game of it.
"Proud of our guys for coming up with the win. Found a way to win. So much to learn and so much to grow from. Some good things to take away, including some things that we need to work on and we are excited to keep learning and growing."
On Kentucky's rebounding woes, Pope said, "We will credit them first for being really, really focused on the assignment. Clearly is not acceptable for us. We had zero offensive rebounds in the first half and we had one in the game. That is just, again, that’s not acceptable for us. That’s a place where we really have to grow."
This past week, with Kentucky's disappointing 20-point loss to Kansas in Chicago and its narrow win over Northern Arizona, the passionate Big Blue Nation, which has high expectations, certainly went through a roller coaster of emotions. Some have voiced frustrations with the UK basketball team's performance.
"I hope everybody at Rupp had fun," said Pope when asked to respond to Big Blue Nation's feelings. "It was a pretty exciting game. You saw a Northern Arizona team that was playing great basketball and a Kentucky team that was trying to find itself. And it came down to the last second, and it’s pretty entertaining. If not well executed, it’s really entertaining. And I think it’s going to be a fun team to follow.
"Like I said, this team is — with one exception — finding ways to win games and will continue down that path as we try to land and settle the ship and execute better. The crowd was amazing, by the way. They were great down the stretch. They were unbelievable. It’s awesome. Rupp is a beautiful place."
The next game for UK, now 3-1, is Monday night when the Wildcats play host to Grambling State. The 7 p.m. ET game will be televised on SEC Network+.
BOX SCORE
Comments