Jaland Lowe (15) was all smiles after leading UK to a win over Indiana. (Vicky Graff Photo)
It was the “Mo and Lowe Show” at Rupp Arena Saturday night.
Mouhamed Dioubate and Jaland Lowe combined for 27 points to lead Kentucky to a 72-60 win over border rival Indiana, giving the Wildcats the victory they needed against a quality opponent after starting the season 0-4 against ranked teams.
“We absolutely needed this tonight, just to show that we have the fight in us and that we’re capable of doing this,” Lowe said. “It’s been rocky and hard for us so far in this journey but just showing these guys that we can show up and do it in every aspect tonight is huge for us.”
The win was indeed a relief for Kentucky, which endured a 35-point loss to No. 8 Gonzaga and a three-point defeat to North Carolina to open December. The Wildcats (6-4) countered with much-needed wins over North Carolina Central and the Hoosiers (8-3) this week to get back on track.
“We just willed ourselves into a win tonight and that’s what we had to do,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “That’s probably what we have to do right now, but if we do that enough, then all of a sudden, we’re gonna have some belief that we can win this way, and things are gonna loosen up a little bit. That’s just the process. It’s not rocket science. If you’ve been around sports, you know that’s the process.”
Although not perfect against the Hoosiers, shooting 27 percent and making just three treys on 15 attempts, the Wildcats used a 17-2 run in the second half to erase a 49-42 deficit with 14 minutes remaining. Dioubate sparked the rally with a pair of offensive putbacks, a three-point play and a steal on an inbounds play to help overcome a poor first-half performance.
“His physicality was elite,” Pope said. “He was great on the glass. It was awesome to have him back. I mean, he’s such a great competitor. I think it’s been killing him to be out and it was great to have him back.”
In his return, Dioubate, who celebrated his birthday Saturday, tallied 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in 22 minutes for his second double-double of the season. Dioubate wanted to simply bring energy to the team but brought an aggressiveness in the post the Wildcats had been missing during his absence.
“One of the things I was going to be bringing to this team was the energy and I just try to make it contagious,” he said. “As you saw today, it was very contagious to where everyone starts playing to that standard. I’m just gonna keep doing that moving forward.”
Dioubate and Lowe had been hit and miss in the lineup this season because of injuries. Dioubate missed the past five games because of an ankle injury, while Lowe appeared in his third straight game after missing six of the first eight encounters because of a shoulder injury.
Behind Dioubate and Lowe, the Wildcats forced 18 turnovers, including 12 in the second half. The Wildcats scored 23 points off those miscues. Offensive rebounding, which had been an issue in Kentucky’s four losses this season, also played a role in Kentucky’s ability to defeat the Hoosiers.
“I thought their effort, their physicality in the second half was really good,” Indiana coach Darian DeVries said. “They certainly cranked it up a notch in that second half. We needed to respond to it, but I thought their aggressiveness defensively and their aggressiveness on the offensive glass was ultimately the factor.”
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GAMETRACKER: Kentucky vs. St. John’s, Saturday, noon. TV/Radio: CBS Sports, UK Radio Network.
8 Responses
We won the game…why does it feel like we lost? We shot 38% from the field, 20% from the arc on only 15 attempts (what happened to 35?), and 66% from the free throw line. We also got out rebounded by a smaller, puny team. We were down by 7 at halftime. We should have lost that game, someone must have dropped a bag of cash off to the officials at halftime. The ONLY reason we beat Indiana was due to them getting served a healthy dose of home cooking in the second half. Will that kind of performance be good enough to beat St. John's? No, it won't. How about Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Auburn, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, or Texas A&M? I don't see it happening. Watching that game was like getting a root canal…I was glad it ended the right way but did not enjoy one minute of it. That is not Kentucky basketball. We only had 10 assists on 22 field goals. If Dioubate had not come in and man handled them the way he did, we would have lost…thankfully the check to the refs cleared by halftime. That strategy won't work in the SEC, even if Quaintance does finally take the floor. After seeing the style of play it will take to win, whoever is assuring JQ of being a top 10 pick will certainly not want him playing in hatchet and club filled games like that. If you were his Dad, would you tell him to take the floor? Aberdeen played hero ball from the jump going 3-7 from the field with no assists. Lowe only had 2 assists, shot 5 of 13 from the field, 0-3 from the arc, and 3-6 from the foul line. Does that sound like starting point guard caliber play? No it doesn't…not in any league much less the SEC. Garrison had a better game, but it didn't take much for that to happen; the same goes for Williams. Moreno took a big step backwards and Jelavic didn't even get in the game! What is going on? The rah rahs will be screaming stop saying bad things about Kentucky, we won the game…that is what the scoreboard said anyway. Why does it feel like we lost?
Win is a win, I thought our defense was the difference and they play with lot of heart for a change. On the offensive side still needs work just hasn't been the same since the no count game against Purdue.
Was this really a win against a quality opponent? Who has Indiana beat? Nobody. They have no wins over a ranked team and are not ranked. It looked like a mirror image of the Cats. Ky wins with home court advantage.
We were told the Cats could shoot. I hope they don't start shooting 35 three's a game. That would be ugly. We will see how they handle Slick Rick. That's will be the measuring stick for me. Indiana was NOT a quality opponent.
I agree. Let's see what happens when we play a good team.
No way near being able to say they are back. The defense did play better as the game went on, but we were lucky they had all those Turns and cold 3 pt shooting. Why do we have to start every game where we look totally disinterested and clueless as to what we want to do? We are not even allowed to enjoy the game and for about 3/4ths of it we were the Unmakeables and Unwatchables. Garrison made the most of his well earned limited minutes, and Lo and Moe played very well. Did Mo look like someone who had just gotten off injury list?…especially as reckless as he plays. Something going on there. Nothing mentioned about why Jelavic didn't play. We got no offense from our supposedly 3pt specialists and Moreno plays more like a 3* with 3 pts and 2 boards in 20 some minutes. Will we ever get a consistent team buy-in with confidence in shooting? Pope's teams have been the worse shooting inside offense I have ever seen. We were told we had one of the best 3pt shooting teams and with a few exceptions every opposing team has made more 3's than we have.
I can’t believe how many easy lay-ups were missed! Not getting the ball over the rim with several hitting the bottom of the rim and one stuck there?! Not getting easy rebounds!!! Charles said “They may have played hard but they didn’t play Good”! It was not an enjoyable game to watch! I know a lot of BBN will say a win is a win but it’s a fact that this team is just not good. Not one player is a reliable shooter from the floor and a terrible free throw shooting team as a whole. An old football coach once said if the other team don’t score you won’t lose. Maybe we need to stop shooting practice since we are over a third of the season and have no one that could hit the ocean if trying and just practice Defense and layups….
I've never seen a team miss this many layups every game. We are definitely better with Lowe playing because he speeds us up. We play better in a fast court offense then when we try to set up plays. The reason for this is that we aren't a good shooting team. Aberdeen and Williams shoot more air balls then I've seen in a season. It's only 10-11 games into the season. I guarantee Aberdeen has already airballed around 10 3s. Every game he shoots at least one airball. Mo-D played his best game as a wildcat. He's the only player on the team that can get a offensive rebound and put back and I don't think he's even 6'7" closer to 6'6". Moreno is trash on offense. I've never seen anyone 7' that can't dunk on people down low. If you watch when he jumps for a rebound he doesn't even get 6"s off the floor. Garrison played with most effort I've seen him play with since he's been here at Kentucky. Kudos to Garrison. It looks like this team just goes through the motions. Like they were assembled to play basketball at a warehouse. I thought we would be a super athletic team this year but thats not the case. Like I've told everyone all year the thing we are missing is what made us win this game. The PG position. We are a much better team with Lowe on the court. It's a shame he can only use one arm. But it's like what Charles Barkley said. If you play I don't want to hear that your hurt. Your wither hurt or you play there is no in between. It was also the most hustle I've seen out our team. I still think we lose to St Johns and i see we open up sec play against Alabama. We only play 2 games in the next 3 weeks. I think we lose to both Alabama and St Johns. If JQ starts playing against St Johns we might go on a roll once he's healthy.
The lack of posts to last night's "performance" says it all. This is going to be a long season.