Otega Oweh (Vicky Graff Photo)
There’s no doubt point guard Lamont Butler was the star of stars for Kentucky in its 93-85 win over Louisville Saturday thanks to his career-high 33 points and perfect 10-for-10 shooting from the field.
However, don’t underestimate what Otega Oweh contributed to the win.
He finished with 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting, three assists, two steals and one rebound. Even more importantly, he did not have a turnover in 26 1/2 minutes of play.
“One of the great things about O is he is just in the moment. I think he’s got a pretty great capacity of just being dialed into the moment and not spending a lot of time worrying about the consequences of what might happen or what just did happen,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said.
That’s what Oweh did after he missed the front end of the bonus with Kentucky clinging to a 79-74 lead. But rather than worry about the miss, he came up with a huge steal on Louisville’s next possession that he converted into a dunk for an 81-74 lead with 1 minute, 58 seconds to play.
Forty-eight seconds later he hit a 3-pointer to push the Kentucky lead to 86-76 lead. However, he wasn’t finished. He scored on a fast break and was fouled with 43.6 seconds left. This time he made the free throw for an 89-79 lead.
That meant he had eight points in 75 seconds and went 3-for-3 from the field during the streak.
“He’s pretty good at being present. He’s actually really good at it,” Pope said.
That led the Kentucky coach to share a story about Oweh that is almost too good to be true.
“Our guys have made a renewed commitment to be present in class every day. Otega happens to have an early morning class where he’s getting better and better at being present,” Pope said. “A couple of days ago it was all hands on deck making sure it was there.
“Two minutes after class, we got a video from him of him sitting in an empty classroom because class was canceled and we didn’t know about it. He is the epitome of present. In fact, I’m going to try to get him to put out the video, I’m going to try to get him to post it.
“It’s actually so delightful, because he didn’t really say anything, he’s like, ah. So he’s present, he’s present in class, he’s present on the court, he’s present in the closing minutes.”
He’s so present that he leads the team in scoring at 15.7 points per game after 11 games and is shooting 52.5 percent from the field. He’s also averaging 4.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game in his 26 minutes per game.
4 Responses
This article certainly boosts my opinion of Oweh, which was already very good.
The players who have backpedaled from insuring UK is the amazing TEAM with chemistry & unselfishness which was on display a full 40 minutes per game thru 5 games need to get back to being 100% “in” the TEAM 1st Coach Pope plan. There have been too many inconsistencies since then in each game. Too many 0-7 spurts by opponents and too many “0” passes before shooting when UK has the ball. It requires EVERY player to be focused AND committed to maintain the intensity & success at both ends of the floor for 40 minutes.
The seniors and super seniors realize that they are building their NBA resume now, so sacrificing for the team is taking a backseat.
Some fans never satisfied.
Oweh is a high IQ player. He is a team player and he shares the ball.