Kentucky basketball went into Tuscaloosa on Saturday hoping to pull of the upset down two of their starting guards in Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson, but that wasn’t the case. After taking a 20-9 lead in the first half, leading by as much as 30-18, the Wildcats never led after that point, and allowed a 29-10 run to close the half. In the second half, the Wildcats had to play catch-up in the final minutes after the Crimson Tide extended their lead, too much for Kentucky to overcome.
Mark Pope was asked after the 96-83 loss to the high-powered offensive squad about what went wrong after Kentucky never regained a lead after being up by as much as twelve in the first half. Pope says fatigue played a big part in it down the stretch, but his team also made some uncharacteristic mistakes throughout the game that the Crimson Tide took advantage of, ones that he says aren’t the mistakes this team usually makes. Alabama had 24 points off of 13 Kentucky turnovers.
The game got a little Helter-Skelter. We got a little fatigued. We had some protection issues, we had some defensive coverage issues that were hard. (That was) kind of the whole thing. …(Alabama) gave us a chance to start the second half, and minus us sending them to the free throw line, we were pretty good defensively. We weren’t functioning well on the offensive side, either. …We gotta play some perfect basketball in terms of only making OUR mistakes, not making mistakes that aren’t us. We have to make some mistakes the way we play, and there were too many tonight where it was mistakes that weren’t the way we play.”
Sloppy play and lack of stops again bit Kentucky in their second matchup with Alabama, and it played out very similar to the game we saw in Rupp Arena between the two teams. Kentucky will look to take care of business now on the road when they face Oklahoma on Wednesday, a team fighting for their NCAA Tournament hopes.
