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For over a decade, Kentucky basketball was built around star freshmen. That was the John Calipari way – even when players started to utilize the transfer portal and NIL came onto the scene.
When Mark Pope came to Kentucky, he looked first to the transfer portal to build out a majority of his roster. He landed several veteran players with talent and experience.
While Pope and the Kentucky program were stoked to build such a good team so quickly, they were also very excited about two Kentucky freshmen.
One of the freshmen, Travis Perry, had already committed to Kentucky through John Calipari and was the lone recruit to remain loyal to UK after the former UK coach made his departure for Arkansas.
The other was Trent Noah who was not offered by Calipari and therefore had decided to play at South Carolina. Pope’s hiring at Kentucky, though, quickly turned the tide and UK was able to flip him back to his home state to play for the school he grew up loving.
The two freshmen played a major role in delivering a 75-64 win over rival Tennessee on Tuesday night.
Kentucky has been bitten by the injury bug for a good portion of the season and that injury bug has impacted several of those coveted veterans Pope recruited to Kentucky.
The likes of Andrew Carr, Lamont Butler, and Jaxson Robinson have all missed time due to nagging injuries that they can’t seem to shake.
Kentucky had Butler and Carr healthy for the start of Tuesday night’s game against Tennessee but were going to have to lace up without Robinson.
That meant Robinson’s 13.3 points per game would have to be made up – and then some – to try and be competitive with the Volunteers.
Koby Brea earned the start in replace of the injured Robinson but, while he played a very good game (11 points), Noah was Kentucky’s difference maker in the first half.
The freshman forward led all scorers with nine first half points (all three-pointers) in eight quality minutes and finished the game with 11 points on 3-4 shooting in 19 total minutes.
Perry also had by far his best game as a Wildcat, scoring a career-high eight points on 3-4 shooting in 12 total minutes.
In addition to not having Robinson for the entire game, Kentucky lost Butler in the second half due to injury and Perry once again answered the call by jumping right back into the heavyweight matchup.
Perry was also tasked with guarding veteran Zakai Zeigler for nearly all of his time spent on the court and while he did give up a couple of baskets, the freshman guard managed to hold up well.
Colin Chandler only saw the floor for three minutes and while he didn’t attempt a shot, he did convert an assist on a drive and dish for a dunk.
With Jaxson Robinson and Lamont Butler potentially missing more time, the play of Kentucky’s freshmen will become even more important.
Kentucky hits the road later this week as they travel to Texas for a Saturday showdown.
Tip-off is scheduled for 8 PM ET with television coverage on ESPN.
5 Responses
The freshmen are going to determine how far we go this season. Kriisa is out for the year. Robinson may be out until the SEC tourney. Butler could be back for the Auburn game, but that’s iffy. Almonor and Brea are upping their games. Noah has been huge! Perry has made progress. It would be nice if Williams and Garrison could have good games in the same game and that can still happen. Carr is the wild card. Is he healthy or just trying to gut it out through pain? If he can regain his preinjury form we will be rocking and rolling. Go CATS!!!
You nailed it across the board.
My favorite statement:
“The freshmen are going to determine how far we go this season.”
Pre-season and all season, I have been calling for the 3 FR, especially the 2 Kentucky born stars who are among the greatest to hold state records, to get more and more PT to prepare them for the SEC. Now they are getting more than a token 2 to 5 minutes, results are clear.
Any great shooter needs to get a rhythm to get a high % stat sheet. Noah & Perry were each 3-4 for a total 6-8 in 31 minutes. Noah is a board crashed without any hesitation. Those 2 wear the UK jersey the same as Darius Miller (the last time since 1998 that UK win it all) with a gigantic KY Heart bursting through their jersey.
Even with some errors, let these 2 get 25 minutes a game and UK will win at least 5 of the last 7, and maybe more. Then the FF and a shot at #9 is on the table.
Butler is a key to a big post season but he should have Perry in the game with him and screens should be set for Perry & Noah to get the most out of them. Brea is a sharp shooter who has expanded his game and those 3 can spread the floor to get the bigs open inside. I want to see Butler, Brea, Perry & Noah with Williams (or Carr when he is healthy or a Garrison when he is focused) and watch UK fill the basket!
Owega has worked hard but has not been a good shooter. He & Robinson often take too many shots for their results and seldom get more than 1 (maybe 2) assists in 30 minutes. Last night Owega had more than usual.
Butler is vital & Carr is vital, but UK can get it done without Robinson.
UK has ONE Title in the past 24 years and under the fraud quit showing up in the SECT. That one Title had a key ingredient with Darius Miller & it took MKG to tell the fraud how important he was – resulting in the Regional MVP on the road to #8.
With Butler not at 100% Robinson out Krissa out the 2 freshman saved the day against Tennessee. They have improved how I knew they would improve. They will only get better and better. I don’t think Kriisa is coming back anytime soon. A foot injury is funny because it heals quick but it takes forever to get back to 100% and even longer if your playing a sport were you constantly run and change direction. If he’s not back close to the SEC tournament I doubt we see him play anymore unless they file fore a medical redshirt but I think he played to many games for a medical redshirt or he’s right at the threshold. We play much better defense with Butler available! We need him healthy going forward but can’t really afford him to miss any games. Even if he don’t score he is a pitbull on the opposing point guard. Almonor has stepped his game up as well. At this point in the season I feel better when we play top 15 teams then teams that aren’t ranked. We should feel better about the next 3 games competition but idk seems like we dont come ready to play against weaker competition. Problem is its not weak competition except for South Carolina and LSU the SEC is stacked.
Yes, yes, yes to all your comments.
Butler’s value is extremely high on the defensive end. Definitely an essential player. Carr is also needed in good health to be effective.
Almonar has improved but he had that one game where he became a phantom for 15 min & filled his box score with all zeroes.
Freshmen will be needed with some major minutes for UK to get to the FF and definitely to win #9. History has proven it.
Very happy for and proud of the Freshman making a big impact and showing that we may finally have developed a bench. The D and O were fantastic the first half, and the cutting to the basket very impressive also. We still have the inconsistency of the team not being able to pull off 2 halves with consistency on both sides and players having the same problem. One of our biggest problems still is that we don’t have anyone that can consistently hit a jumper inside or take it to the rim. Oweh has to finish better and spend more time on his jumper. The Carr situation is still very cloudy. It sounded like he and the team were trying to put back problems in past with comments made last week, but he contributed nothing and had 2 turns. Garrison also has to show more than he has.