Veterans Lead Cats to Win in SEC Opener

With the onset of conference play, Kentucky has an advantage this season that it has not had in years past during the John Calipari era – experience. Players who have faced Southeastern Conference opponents before know what to expect and how to handle it.

That experience showed on Wednesday night as the Cats topped Missouri 83-56 in the SEC opener at Rupp Arena. Junior forward Keion Brooks Jr. was one of the veterans who stepped up for UK with one of his best games so far this season.

Brooks hit seven of his 11 shots and three of four at the line on his way to 17 points, his second-best total this season. The Fort Wayne, Indiana, native added a season-high nine rebounds as well as two blocked shots and an assist.

Calipari thought Brooks played well on Wednesday.

“Keion was terrific,” Calipari said. “He played great.”

Part of that may be due to Calipari asking more from Brooks.

“What I’ve done is, I am holding him to a high standard that I think he’s capable of reaching,” Calipari said. “If he plays, we’re pretty good. He had nine rebounds. That team (Missouri) outrebounded everybody they’ve played. And they weren’t rebounds away from the goal, they were traffic rebounds. And he ran the floor. It’s really hard to play the way he played.”

Brooks knows that, when he brings energy, his performance improves.

“That definitely helps, running the floor, when you have a great guards like Davion (Mintz), TyTy (Washington Jr.), Sahvir (Wheeler) they’re going to get you open shots, and if you run the floor, good things will happen for you,” Brooks said. “Also, with me, it’s just a matter of just continuing to play hard, not worrying about what could happen, what might happen, just play hard and just bring energy. When you have energy, you know, the ball, finds energy, so that’s really what happened.”

Freshman guard TyTy Washington Jr. knew that Brooks was going to have a big game from the very beginning.

“I can tell when Keion’s going to have a good night by how he starts the game off,” Washington said. “He was the aggressor for us. After he got that first putback, I knew he was going to have a big game.”

Point guard Sahvir Wheeler has also played in SEC games before, although his previous experience game while he was at Georgia. In his first conference game as a Cat, Wheeler had 11 points, eight assists and two steals.

Like Wheeler, forward Oscar Tshiebwe has experience in conference play, although Tshiebwe’s experience came in the Big 12 while playing for West Virginia. Still, that experience came through on Wednesday as the Big O scored 13 points and grabbed 20 rebounds in the victory.

“He had 20 rebounds,” Calipari said. “What in the world?”

Overall, Calipari likes the way his team is playing, and the speed at which they are doing so.

“If you play the way we’re playing, at some point, if a team’s not used to playing that way, there’s going to be a gap (in scoring),” Calipari said. “That’s why we want to keep playing fast.”

As conference play continues, Kentucky’s experience should continue to pay dividends against what figures to be a tough slate of SEC foes.