Andrew Carr had his first double-double for UK Tuesday night. (Vicky Graff Photo)
This win was not as easy as most of the other ones have been this season for Kentucky and that suited forward Andrew Carr.
He had his first double-double at UK with 18 points on 6-for-8 shooting and 10 rebounds along with three assists and one block in the 87-68 victory over Western Kentucky Tuesday night.
“I think we talked in the locker room about how awesome it is. It’s great when you are able to come away super frustrated and didn’t play like ourselves and don’t get in a rhythm, and credit Western Kentucky for that, and we were still able to come away with a 20-point win, after that is pretty incredible,” said Carr on the UK Radio Network postgame show.
“It’s a testament to our ability to come together and keep after it no matter how the game is going.”
Former UK All-American Jack Givens was almost giddy that UK was able to win the way it did. He noted how Western “tried to beat them down” but that resulted in UK getting 42 free throws and making 29 when it was only 25 of 62 from the field.
“They did enough to get a 19-point win over a really good Western Kentucky team,” Givens said.
Givens said it was “music to my ears” that UK did not shoot nearly as well as it has been — even Koby Brea “only” went 3-for-7 from 3-point range. The Cats missed 21 of 29 3’s.
“Yet you look up and they were still able to score 89 points,” Givens said. “They realized they were not making shots as consistently and they got to the basket and got to the free throw line. I have seen prettier games from this team but this is the way you win that first game in the playoffs (NCAA Tournament).”
Carr said he’s glad he has the versatility to be able to play the 4 (power forward) and stretch the floor. Even if he’s not able to get open 3’s, it makes the defense close out on him to open space for teammates.
“I like that my versatility gives the team more options,” Carr said. “We have unbelievable shooters. That’s who we are. We are an unselfish team. Our goal is to make plays for our teammates. We were not knocking down shots but it shows growth to win even when we are not knocking down shots.”
Otega Oweh also had 18 points on 6-for-14 shooting along with four rebounds. Lamont Butler had 14 points, five rebounds, four assists and one steal. He also did not have a turnover and also drew eight fouls that enabled him to get to the foul line 12 times.
Amari Williams had eight points, 10 rebounds, four blocks and three assists — along with six turnovers.
14 Responses
This was Western’s Super Bowl and it seemed that the Cats kept expecting the Hilltoppers to fold and were annoyed when they didn’t. Western was a quick team and a physical team and it affected our shooting in all phases, but that generally happens in a rockfight type of game. They kept their composure and toughed out a gritty win. Oweh is the surprise of the season and Carr has shown when this team is challenged, he is the go to guy for a win. The ESPN computer predicts Pope’s team will finish 28-3 for the season with losses in Seattle, Knoxville, and Tuscaloosa. I think it can happen and that should be good for an SEC regular season title, a No.1 seed in the SEC tourney, which I think we will win, and a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance. I think we have a very realistic shot at a Final4 and, with a little luck, could bring No. 9 home to Lexington. What a difference a coaching change has made! Barnhart should take notice of this and call for a change in our football program which is definitely going in the wrong direction.
I don’t know if we’ll go 28-3 or not.
But if we do, that’ll be a good first year from scratch.
Ride Captain Ride
Upon your mystery ship.
I think Auburn’s bigs will give us a lot of problems after last night’s play.
Auburn’s bigs will give everybody problems
The Auburn game on March 1st might be the biggest game of the year.
Andrew Carr reminds me of a 21st century Kevin McHale who played for one of the Celtics championship teams in the 1980s. His back them down moves and his soft touch plus a raw boned rebounding style all match McHale’s game. He played with our own Rick Robey.
Great comparison!
The only knock on Andrew coming into to this season was he gets intimidated when the going gets rough.
He did great against Duke and I think he’s going to do great in the rough SEC play.
Yes, a great comparison!
We will know exactly how great we are when we play Gonzaga. They are definitely a top 3 team. They are also experienced. They also have one of the best coaches in college basketball. If we beat Gonzaga or the game stays close and we barely lose I know we have officially landed. Duke is very very young. Yes it was a test but there best player is 17 years old and should be a senior in high school. We have 7 5th year seniors so we should beat a young duke team early in the season. Like I said if we can beat Gonzaga. Or even lose by less than 5 points or so. I know we are ready. Gonzagas team has half the team that has played together for 2-3 years. Its hard to compete against experience and especially experience playing together. Mark Few is the master of experience, and I think if we can go out west and beat a great Gonzaga team we will jump up in the top 3 and I will know we can beat a final 4 caliber team. I still don’t know if Duke is a final 4 caliber team. We will need to shoot and play much better than we did against western Kentucky to win. If we play like that we will be the Western Kentucky and get beat the same way.
Nobody was saying "We should beat a young Duke team early in the season " last summer.
Winning by nearly 20 when the shots don’t fall is impressive. UK is going to face a variety of tactics teams use to either play rough, play tough or even play dirty and UK is composed of players being united by an awesome coach to take anything thrown at us and just keep on plugging to the finish line.
28-3 or 27-4 with Auburn the 4th loss, would be an impressive year after starting from scratch!
40-0 is obviously a stretch but any of those “expected” losses could end up a win, which would mean a possible 2 loss season.
The 2012 team was 38-2 !!!
I thought we looked very beatable last night especially in the first half. Carr was great during that time but needs to bring more O for both halves. We also need to get some consistent offense from Williams and Garrison to be the team everyone feels they are capable of being. There is no way Williams should have had 6 T.O.’s in first half with his experience.
He made some really sloppy passes and Pope yanked him out.
We will be a much better team come March 1, Auburn won’t get much better than they were this week. Pope will have 3 months to game plan for the Tigers. We will have 3 months to grow into Pope’s system; we are about 60% there. That gives us time to learn how to trust others to make a play versus having to do it themself. Come March, we won’t recognize this Kentucky team.