In basketball, sometimes the other team is just a lot better than you that day. For Bama fans, they probably had PTSD from UK teams playing lights out at Rupp against Alabama. Alabama has had a decent amount of success against Kentucky since Nate Oats arrived, but today it was all Cats.
It was an excellent game for the first 7 minutes when it was 27-25. Then UK went on a 16-2 run to build a 16 point lead. A lead that would get as low as 12 and as high as 37 the rest of the game.
Kentucky could not miss. It was partly because Alabama has 16 turnovers that turned into 29 Kentucky points, most of those were live ball turnovers that allowed Kentucky to get out and run. Give them credit, they played great offensively. Just Edwards is barely above 30% from 3 on the year and went 4/4 from deep and 10/10 overall. Everyone was hitting for them and it all came easy as Alabama just played poor defense all game.
Alabama played great offensively (when they weren’t turning it over). I thought early on, Alabama looked like the better team, but turnovers and 2nd chance points for UK kept them right there. Outside of the loss on Wednesday to LSU, UK has looked fantastic on both ends of the court recently. They would’ve beaten 99% of teams today. Alabama dominated the paint, but their problem was they didn’t shoot enough 3’s. 17 attempts is the second lowest amount that Alabama has taken under Oats. That’s partly due to them turning the ball over so much.
Where does Alabama go from here? They’re still going to be in first place today with a big road game at Ole Miss, a team that looks like they’ve given up. Then, the SEC championship will likely be decided March 2 in Coleman against Tennessee if Alabama wins against Ole Miss.
Today was a game that you flush down the toilet and try to not let it affect you next game. Same happened against Auburn and Tennessee. They won their next 4 after being blown out at UT and their next 3 after being blown out at Auburn. They’ve done good bouncing back and will need to do it again.
