Denzel Aberdeen had 19 points for Kentucky at South Carolina. (UK Athletics Photo)
Maybe it was an ugly win with too many missed shots and turnovers against the worst team in the Southeastern Conference but a win is a win.
Kentucky came into Tuesday night’s game at South Carolina on a three-game losing. The Cats fell behind early — nothing new about that — but then seemed to have the game in hand only to see South Carolina tie the game with 8 minutes, 25 seconds to play — nothing new about that, either. However, Kentucky did what it needed the rest of the way to win 72-63.
To make the NCAA Tournament, this was a must win. No, beating South Carolina will not enhance UK’s NCAA seed line. But a fourth straight loss coming to the SEC’s worst team could have put UK in danger of not even making the tournament.
“Some teams are good at uglying up the game and that’s the only way they can be successful. Sometimes you have to ugly the game up and we helped. We have not seemed to value that basketball,” UK Radio Network analyst Jack Givens said. “You lose games when you turn it over a high number of times and it’s good to win one in spite of that.”
Kentucky had average 14 turnovers per game during its three-game losing streak and had 15 more against South Carolina. However, the Gamecocks only managed 13 points off those turnovers.
“The thing that hurts you when you don’t get a shot up is it usually leads to something on the other end and it also makes it difficult to get on a roll offensively,” Givens said. “The other thing with the turnovers is when you have players taking the game over themselves and over dribbling it lets the defense close into the middle and create turnovers. Kentucky was fortunate to win but there are a lot of ways to improve.”
Kentucky had 18 offensive rebounds against the smaller Gamecocks and won the rebounding battle 48-28. However, Kentucky put up 25 3-pointers and made only seven — and guard Denzel Aberdeen had four of those in his 19-point performance.
“Most coaches are stubborn. (Coach Mark) Pope wants to make his offense work. Even though he has all these injuries and it is a good time to try something different, he is hell bent on making his offense work,” former UK All-American Kenny Walker, a WVLK-AM Radio analyst, said about Pope’s belief in 3-point shots.
“He is not looking at matchups like we are. Coach Pope is no different from any other coach. I don’t care who gets the credit for making the change but make changes to help your players. Proving a point to fans is not going to help anything.”
What did help was the energy Mo Dioubate brought off the bench again. He had 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting and four rebounds but his energy is impossible to measure. He also had one assist, one block and one steal. His +/- ratio was plus 16, the highest on the team, because of plays like this:
— With UK leading 52-50, he forced a South Carolina turnover.
— With UK leading 52-50, Dioubate missed a shot inside, got his own rebound and fed Aberdeen for a score with 6:06 to play.
— He drew a shooting foul with 5:01 to play and hit one foul shot for a 55-50 lead.
— With 4:20 to play, Dioubate powered his way inside to score for a 59-52 lead.
— He had a fast break dunk with only 59.7 seconds left for a 68-57 lead.
“We have been in a lot of games like this and most importantly we fought back,” Dioubate said on the UK Radio Network postgame show. “Our identity has been slow starts but we keep coming back to get the win. This game does not define us at all. We are just going to keep moving forward.
“I just try to do my job. Everyone knows me as a blue-collar guy, so I try to bring the energy and get as many blocks or steals as I can to help my team.”
Kentucky (18-10, 9-6 SEC) will host Vanderbilt Saturday and then play at Texas A&M before hosting Florida to end the regular season.
“We all know what we are capable of doing. We have a lot of talent and expectations,” Dioubate said. “When we limit our turnovers and play together it is very scary. With me being more productive on offense and with my defense it is helping us look better.”
Aberdeen said on ESPN that the Cats know what they must do the next three games to help their tournament positioning.
“We just have to get wins. It comes down to (defensive) stops,” Aberdeen said.
