Humphries Has Career Night in Loss to UNC

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – All Kentucky sophomore forward Isaac Humphries wanted to do was contribute. He wanted to help out his teammates in any way that he could.

Over the summer and throughout the preseason, Humphries was one of the most popular topics of conversation. His slimmed down body and boosted confidence was raising eyebrows in the practice gym at the Joe Craft Center and he was ready to take that next step as a sophomore.

Only, that strong play in practice wasn’t translating to games, and Humphries, one of the youngest sophomores in the entire country, remained positive, but was disappointed in not being able to get more run.

Sunday against top-seeded North Carolina with a spot in the Final Four on the line offered a new opportunity for Humphries due to Carolina’s size. Humphries knew this was a possibility. And he took full advantage of it.

“So proud of Isaac,” head coach John Calipari said. “Can you imagine, his first real opportunity to do this was in this game, and he performed? Amazing.”

Humphries finished with a career-high 12 points, five rebounds, one assist and one steal in 21 minutes. He hit baseline jumpers, elbow jumpers, layups and free throws. He was active on defense, tipped balls out for rebounds and gave great energy.

He was a difference maker.

Unfortunately for him and the Wildcats, it wasn’t enough in a devastating 75-73 loss to top-seeded North Carolina in which Tar Heel forward Luke Maye hit a jumper to win the game with 0.3 seconds left in the game.

“It’s heartbreaking, in such a big game as well,” Humphries said. “It’s really, really upsetting to me to know that all I wanted to do was just play as well as I could for my team and step up for team, and you can’t help but think that maybe that just wasn’t enough. I was really excited about this game. I was really happy to be given the opportunity I was given. I just really wanted to make the most of it, not for me, but for my teammates. I love my teammates. This whole season has been about them and not anyone else.”

Facing a North Carolina frontline that entered the game having outrebounded its opponents by more than 13 boards per game, Coach Cal went to Humphries less than three minutes into the game as his first substitution off the bench. 

The Aussie quickly hit a baseline jumper 63 seconds after checking into the game and Big Blue Nation seemed to quickly exhale a sigh of relief. In the 24 games that Humphries had scored in this season, the Wildcats were a perfect 24-0.

“I’ve been really focusing on my jump shot and really trying to work on that over the season, just so I can be confident in a situation like this,” Humphries said. “I see that that’s been paying off and stuff like that. But – this happened to me last year as well – you just gotta take it as it comes. The opportunity came and I was ready to go for it.”

After scoring four points on 2-of-3 shooting and grabbing four rebounds in the first half, Humphries played the best ball of his career in the second half.

With Kentucky trailing by three and less than eight minutes to go, Humphries scored eight of UK’s 10 points in a two-minute and 45-second stretch, the last basket being a deep jumper that put UK up by five with 5:10 left in the game.

“I was honestly just thinking, what more can I do? What do I have to do now to help my team? What do I do now to help my team?” Humphries said. “That was my mindset the whole game. That was my mindset coming in: What can I do for my team?”

Shortly after Humphries’ jumper, UNC switched to a zone and went on a 12-0 run to take a seven-point lead with less than a minute to play. Kentucky would fight back furiously to tie the game on a Malik Monk 3-pointer with nine seconds to play, but UNC quickly inbounded the ball and found Maye on the left side of the court and he hit his sixth shot of the game to give the Tar Heels the win.

“When that 3 went in (by Monk) and it tied the game, I probably should have called a timeout,” Calipari said after the game. “It entered my mind, but they got that son-of-a-b in so quick, I couldn’t get to anybody to do it. But I needed to stop that right there.”

For Humphries, a thoughtful, soft-spoken 7-footer from Sydney, the entire game could only be seen as bittersweet. All he wanted to do the entire season was help his teammates out in a game, and he did that, earning All-South Region honors in the process. But his team wasn’t able to get the win, and was left to sit in the locker room afterwards asking “what if?”

“I’m really happy that I could contribute,” Humphries said. “I was really happy that I could – I keep saying it, but I was really happy I could do that for my team. Sitting here now, it’s really upsetting, but I’m just so happy I could give the other guys a chance to stay in the game and give them chances to keep playing and stuff like that.”

His performance caught many people watching off guard. Humphries was averaging but 2.5 points per game and hadn’t scored more than two points in any of UK’s past 12 games. His 21 minutes played were a season high, with his second highest total coming in UK’s first game against North Carolina on Dec. 17 (20 minutes).

It did not, however, surprise his teammates, who have seen the hard work he puts in on the practice floor every day.

“We know how good Isaac is,” said senior guard Dominique Hawkins, who scored 10 big first-half points to keep Kentucky in the game when things looked dire. “In practice he shoots the lights out. We have a drill where we shoot for five minutes and he makes at least 80 shots. For him to step up in that moment, I’m proud of him, and I knew that he had it in him.”

Going into an offseason in which Kentucky will lose three seniors and likely a few underclassmen as well, a career night – win or lose – could potentially catapult Humphries into bigger things to come. Humphries, as a junior next season, will be one of the true veterans left on the team.

Instead, Humphries continued to put his focus on the team, just as he’s always done.

“It’s obviously a big confidence boost,” Humphries said. “But, during the moment, during the game, right now I’m really not trying to think of how it can – it will obviously help my confidence, but I was just trying to do what I could to help the team. It wasn’t anything about me. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to help me now.’ All I was thinking was trying to help my team.”