Kentucky basketball gets down in mud with Arkansas in SEC game, finally wins ugly
Two criticisms, directly correlated to one another, have hounded Kentucky since the season tipped off.
One: Its defense is dreadful.
Two: As majestic and striking as its high-flying offense can be, it hasn’t proven it can win when points are hard to come by.
UK turned both those appraisals on their ears Saturday, as it overcame offensive struggles to win a rock fight on the road against Arkansas, 63-57, at Bud Walton Arena.
"Somewhere along the line, that's going to happen," Kentucky coach John Calipari said, referring to off nights offensively. "And do you have the wherewithal to finish that game?"
On this night, his team did.
The No. 6 Wildcats (15-4, 5-2 SEC) entered Saturday as the nation’s most explosive offense, averaging 89.9 points per game. And they had put at least 81 on the board 16 times in 18 outings. But the two contests in which they failed to eclipse 81, they were 0-2. (Kentucky lost to UNC Wilmington, 80-73, at home last month. And it scored a season-low 62 in a 17-point loss at South Carolina on Tuesday.)
Conversely, the Wildcats’ defense had barely stopped a soul this season. Especially since SEC play began. UK gave up at least 77 points in all six conference matchups prior to Saturday. But it confounded Arkansas (10-10, 1-6) for 40 minutes, sending the hosts to their sixth loss in seven league games in 2023-24.
"We know we need to get better defensively," UK freshman guard Reed Sheppard said. "And so we've been working on that."
That Kentucky even managed to score 63 is a minor miracle given how Saturday began. The Wildcats missed 15 of their first 16 shots and 18 of their first 21.
"I don't know why we started so shaky," said Calipari, whose team trailed 18-8 with 7:41 left before halftime. "I don't know why."
Sheppard did, though.
"We got the shots we wanted the first 10 minutes. You've gotta give credit to Arkansas and the fans. They came out there ready to play. The fans were into it," said Sheppard, who had 14 points and posted game highs in assists (five) and steals (four). "And we missed our shots. But we just had to keep trusting it, keep trusting the coaches, keep trusting each other. We knew everyone on the court could score, so we just had to keep trusting each other. And at the end of the day, shots started to fall."
True enough, the Wildcats finished the first half with a flourish, sinking six of their final 10 attempts to trail by two points (26-24) at intermission.
UK didn’t take its first lead until 12:54 remained: Sheppard poked away the ball for a steal and slammed it home to give the visitors a 38-37 advantage.
The lead swapped hands four more times in the next 2 ½ minutes. Kentucky took the lead for good on a layup from Sheppard with 10:21 to play. At that point, the Wildcats were ahead by merely a point, 42-41. But they outscored the Razorbacks 21-16 in the final 10 minutes — Kentucky made seven of its 15 shots during this closing stretch — to stymie the hosts’ hopes for a comeback win.
Not surprisingly on a night when UK finished with a 36.5% (26 for 63) conversion rate from the field — its second-worst effort of the season, trailing only the 32.9% (25 of 76) showing in an 89-84 loss to then-No. 1 Kansas on Nov. 14 — only three players ended in double figures. Sheppard was one. Senior forward Tre Mitchell was another; he posted a double-double, with a team-best 11 rebounds and 10 points, though he was just 3 of 10 from the field, with all three makes behind the 3-point arc.
Then there was Antonio Reeves, who followed up his 37-point performance at Bud Walton Arena in the 2022-23 regular-season finale with a game-high 24 points Saturday.
"I just had the mentality to go out there and score for the team if they're not scoring," said Reeves, who reached the 20-point mark for the 10th time this season. "Just staying aggressive at all times and just figuring out what shots to take, what shots not to. Again, just play within our offense."
An offense that, aside from him, floundered for most of the contest.
That's what made Saturday's result — and how the tussle unfolded — so important for a young squad still finding its way.
"It was a big win for us," Sheppard said. "And I think it's gonna help in later games, just because we've been there now. ... We have confidence when we go into a game and start off not hitting shots or not making every shot that we shoot, we're gonna continue to stick together and trust each other."
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky basketball: John Calipari's team defeats Arkansas in SEC game