Otega Oweh said despite Sunday's loss his two years at UK were "amazing." (Vicky Graff Photo)
ST. LOUIS (KT) — Kentucky ran into a Cyclone and couldn’t weather the storm in an 82-63 loss to Iowa State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday.
“I thought Iowa State was terrific,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “They exert a ton of pressure. They’re very disruptive and they were disruptive with us.”
The Cyclones (29-7), the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Region, will take on Tennessee in the Sweet 16 next weekend in Chicago. The Wildcats concluded the season with a 22-14 record and won three of their last five games in the postseason. Seventh-seeded Kentucky eliminated 10 seed Santa Clara 89-84 in an overtime thriller on Friday. It took a halfcourt shot at the end of regulation by Oweh to force overtime.
This time, Kentucky was on the receiving end of a buzzer-beater at the end of the first half, one that gave Iowa State the momentum it needed to fuel an impressive second half and one that deflated the Wildcats. The 3-pointer by Nate Heise gave the Cyclones a 31-30 lead at the break, an advantage that only blossomed in the second half.
Combined with its smothering defense, Iowa State connected on six 3-pointers and shot a blistering 63 percent in the second half, including a 50 percent clip behind the arc after intermission.
“We had a really hard time getting a stop,” Pope said. “… you’re not going to win games when you give up 51 (points) in the second half.”
Feeding off the momentum of the opening-round victory, the Wildcats made five of their first seven field goals, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Collin Chandler and Denzel Aberdeen and raced out to an 18-6 lead eight minutes into the contest.
Despite the impressive start, Kentucky fell victim to Iowa State’s swarming defense and couldn’t keep pace. The Wildcats committed 20 turnovers, which resulted in 25 points for Iowa State.
“The game certainly didn’t start the way we would like,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “Defensively, our pressure as the game wore on, continued to pay dividends for us and generate turnovers (and) be able to score off of our defense.”
The Cyclones were without All-American guard Joshua Jefferson (ankle) but adjusted and used their defense to help make up for the absence of their standout.
Tamin Lipsey led the Cyclones with 26 points, followed by Milan Momcilovic with 20. Heise had 12 and Killyan Toure added 10.
The 19-point margin tied for the second-most-lopsided in UK’s NCAA Tournament history. Kentucky lost by 24 to Western Kentucky in 1971. The Cats took 19-point losses in the 1942 and 1972 NCAA Tournaments. All three of those losses were under Adolph Rupp.
In his last game at Kentucky, Oweh scored 18 points and tallied double figures in 35 of 36 games this season. Denzel Aberdeen, also a senior, finished with 20 points in his final game at Kentucky. Oweh and Aberdeen were the lone players in double figures.
Oweh ended his career with 1,255 points in his two seasons in Lexington.
“It’s been amazing,” he said. “… obviously I’m disappointed we didn’t get it done this year, but these past two years have been amazing – life changing.”
5 Responses
Hero ball will get you so far and then it will get you beat.
Oweh geta the SEASON ball. He just didn't get a lot of help. This team has a lot of problems and just can't put too halves together and cant get 4-5 guys on same page most of year. Pope needs to go.
Worst NCAA loss since 1972. In his post game comments Pope stated it was important to retain this roster. That's 11 guys. Two didn't play a minute. Can he get 4 "High Quality" players. May need more. I think Johnson and Jelly are gone.
That was 2 teams that were polar opposites of each other in every way possible . The sharing of the basketball and the defense of Iowa st showed what it looks like when a team buys into what the coach is selling. Mark Pope could learn from Iowa St. The main guard goes down with an injury in comes another guard who has a career day against UK. Iowa St really played a poor 1st half of the first half but the system they ran or run won the day . It was like a hammer that just kept pounding and pounding until they beat you into submission . That was what a well coached team looks like.
This team has been dysfunctional since the Purdue win in exhibition. They were selfish about playing time, shots, and who was the hero. Oweh being announced as the pre-season SEC Player of the Year doomed this team. He tried to live up to that billing and it cost us. Pope should have never offered JQ a scholarship to begin with…that could have gone to another big man who would have been available to play. I am still not sure what he saw in Lowe. A ball hog shoot first point guard who couldn't guard a chair and whose body had the consistency of a Pringle's potato chip. Those three issues in themselves sealed the fate of this team. Pope put together a roster where everyone wanted to be a starter and get starter's minutes…it doesn't work like that. He kept trying to be everyone's buddy instead of being the coach and the team fell apart from selfishness and jealousy about playing time and NIL money. Garrison was supposed to be the starting center and he never got his game right until the end of the season. Moreno was pressed into duty and developed well enough at first only to be forced into a point center instead of letting him post down low where he had the height advantage. The same goes for Jelavic. Noah was without question the best shooter on the team yet the ball hogging never got him the ball unless it was a last second bail out pass. This team never did figure out how to guard a pick and roll and we paid for that dearly. We also never utilized the pick and roll on offense even though we had three 6'10"+ big men. Kentucky's offense was to stand in one spot waiting to get the ball so they could be the hero, especially against the Cyclones. The team expended most of its effort on the offensive end trying to score against double and triple teams, resulting in high turnover rates, and then loafed on defense trying to get some rest. This team should have averaged 40 rebounds a game…we did well to get 30. Free throw shooting was horrendous at times and three point shooting was sporadic at best. Pope's goal of taking 35 three point shots NEVER happened…the ball hogs were not the best shooters.
Pope is a good guy but he is in way over his head trying to be Kentucky's men's basketball head coach. He had a lot of injuries in year 1, but in year 2 he signed injured kids??? He did not select a team from the portal that had any desire to play team ball. They all came to Kentucky to show that they could be the hero on the biggest of all stages and were not up to the task. Now, we have no high school talent coming in for next year, the redshirt level of talent is modest at best, and we have a team that doesn't want to play together deciding on whether to stay or leave.
Then we have the Barnhart factor. You don't give guaranteed buyouts to a staff that hasn't earned them. He begged all of the big name coaches to come to Kentucky 2 years ago and nobody would touch the job with a 20 foot pole. He hired Pope out of desperation and on the surface it looked like a promising move, but in reality has proven to be a big mistake. He held onto Calipari 3 years too long and the same for Stoops. Now he plans to leave in June with the football team arguably in a position to make positive strides, but that is more hope than reality. The men's basketball team is in shambles and Barney has no intention of cleaning up the mess he has made, leaving that to the next AD.
We are almost forced to go one more year with Pope, the new AD won't be in place until late June and by then it will be too late to make a coaching change. The buyout of Pope and his staff is unaffordable given that we just threw $35 million to get rid of Stoops. So Pope gets one more shot at fixing this. He has to be the boss and not cave into players demands for playing time, playing style, or NIL money. He cannot promise everybody starter's minutes. He has to decide what style of play to move forward with, but whatever he decides, he will lose 2 kids to graduation and 2 to 4 other kids looking for their style of play versus what Pope chooses. The players lost respect for Pope back in November. Oweh was the tail that wagged the dog and Pope never reined him in. Can Pope re-invent himself and regain that respect? Not without some of the kids moving on to other schools. Can he identify the right talent in the portal and get them to come to Kentucky without throwing NIL money at them? He failed at that in year 2, is there any reason to think year 3 will be that much different?
The new AD gets this mess dumped into his lap. He has a promising football staff to work with and more than likely a basketball team that won't make either the NCAA or NIT tournaments next season. Work with the football team, let the basketball team crash and burn but be looking for the right guy to replace Pope as soon as he shows that he has not come up with a solution himself. No big name coach will take the job; he will have to look at the mid major or assistant coach ranks for candidates. The out of control NIL and transfer portal won't make this job any easier. We have in essence become the next "Indiana". Own it and start making plans to rebuild the program from the ground up.
Indiana never recovered from the Bob Knight fiasco at the end of his tenure. UCLA is still struggling to get back to the glory days of the Wizard of Westwood. It may take a while for Kentucky to recover from this mess and a mess it is! It all starts with hiring the right guy to be the AD and move forward from there. Significant changes must take place in regards to NIL and the transfer portal. CBS, ABC, and ESPN threw big money at college sports and college sports got whored out as a result. The student athlete is a thing of the past; getting an education is a joke. The Bible is right in saying that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Will college sports ever be able to rise above this in the future? That looks doubtful now that Congress has gotten involved. I am sorry for the gloom and doom forecast, but I call them like I see them.
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