Kentucky Ready for Another Thriller Against Texas A&M
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When Kentucky and Texas A&M get together in men’s basketball, a close, high-energy, drama-filled game typically ensues.
Tuesday will provide the latest chapter in what has been one of the Southeastern Conference’s top basketball rivalries over the last four years.
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| Kentucky vs. Texas A&M | ||
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Tue., Jan. 3 – 9 p.m. ET |
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| Coverage | ||
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TV: ESPN |
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| UK | 2016-17 Team Stats | TAMU |
| 11-2 | Record | 8-4 |
| 1-0 | Conference Record | 0-1 |
| 93.5 | PPG | 74.8 |
| 72.1 | Opp PPG | 64.6 |
| .485 | FG% | .469 |
| .399 | Opp FG% | .385 |
| 42.6 | RPG | 40.3 |
| .339 | 3PT FG% | .318 |
| .292 | Opp 3PT FG% | .347 |
| .685 | FT% | .628 |
| 19.5 | APG | 17.6 |
| 7.2 | SPG | 5.8 |
| 6.8 | BPG | 5.8 |
“I think you have two basketball teams going at each other,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said Monday on the SEC Coaches’ Teleconference. “Billy (Kennedy) is a hell of a coach, he gets his teams ready. … There’s been stuff in every game we’ve played with them. They’ve all been hard.”
Since Texas A&M (8-4, 0-1 SEC) joined the SEC in 2012-13, the Wildcats and Aggies have gone to at least one overtime in four of their six meetings, including each of the past three.
“Billy does a great job with his team,” said UK assistant coach Tony Barbee during Monday’s pre-Texas A&M media availability. “First and foremost, with them it starts with defense. That’s why they’ve played our team so well – because of how well they played defensively and how physical they are. It’s why they’ve been one of the best teams in this conference since Billy’s taken over at Texas A&M.”
Kentucky’s 38-1 team in 2014-15 had arguably its toughest game of the regular season when it traveled to the Lone Star State to face Texas A&M. The game went to two overtime periods, and if not for some clutch plays by Trey Lyles, Dakari Johnson and Tyler Ulis, the Cats would have lost to the Aggies.
Last season, Kentucky lost by two points in bizarre fashion in College Station, Texas. With 9.4 seconds left and a one-point lead to its name, an over-exuberant Isaac Humphries, who was in the midst of a career day, threw the ball down and was called for a technical foul. The Aggies made the ensuing free throws to take the lead and ultimately win the game.
After sharing the 2016 SEC regular-season championship with Texas A&M, Kentucky was able to avenge its loss to the Aggies in the SEC Tournament title game in Nashville, Tennessee. In that game, another overtime thriller, Kentucky got 30 points from Ulis, the tournament MVP, and a pair of clutch 3-pointers from Jamal Murray and Derek Willis to dispatch the Aggies.
“I just feel like the past years they’ve been a real well-rounded team,” Willis said. “They have veteran players, they play well, they don’t make a lot of mistakes, and if you make a mistake they make you pay for it. … They’re just a really well-coached team, really good team to play against. You learn a lot when you play against them. Pretty excited to see what’s in store (Tuesday).”
Both teams will feature vastly different rosters from a season ago when they meet at Rupp Arena on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN. Texas A&M lost four senior starters from last year’s team, and Kentucky has started four freshmen in seven of the last eight games.
The Aggies’ lone returning starter is 6-foot-10 center Tyler Davis, an SEC All-Freshman team selection a year ago who leads Texas A&M this year with 14.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, including a league-high 3.9 offensive rebounds per game.
“Obviously he has size. It’s a huge factor, but he plays one or two moments ahead in the game,” Barbee said of Davis. “He’s always angling for position in the post. He’s always angling before a shot is taken to get offensive rebound position. It’s what makes him so effective down there.”
With that in mind, Kentucky has doubled down on its work on the glass in practice. The Wildcats have strapped protective rims on top of the goals so no balls can go through the baskets. Whether the ball remains inbounds or trickles out of bounds doesn’t matter in these drills. What the coaches want to see is fight and positioning from the players as they go after the ball.
“Rebounding has always kind of been about a want to and a will to,” Barbee said. “There’s some positioning things and some technique things that we’re working on, but more than anything it’s just when that ball goes up on that rim, do you think it’s yours? We’ve got one or two guys that think that way. The rest of the guys have got to catch up to that identity.”
In its SEC opener against Ole Miss, which has the greatest rebounding margin in the league, Kentucky was outrebounded by three. Texas A&M just so happens to check in at No. 2 in those rankings with a plus-5.9 margin.
As the schedule progresses, UK coaches are looking for their long, athletic guards to help out more on the glass. Thursday’s game at Ole Miss was a start, as Isaiah Briscoe grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds and Malik Monk pulled down a career-high tying six rebounds, a welcomed sight for the UK coaches.
“Our guards are so big, so long, so athletic that they’ve got to use that to their advantage to go rebound,” Barbee said. “We’ve been focusing on Malik Monk in that area. He should be a guy that goes and gets five, six, seven rebounds a game – because he can. And he has the ability to.”
Coach Cal took it a step further.
“My opinion: He should easily be a double-double every game,” Calipari said of Monk. “And the double that’s a little harder for him is to go get 10, 11 rebounds, which he can if he focuses on it.”
If Tuesday night’s game is anything like the last three games in this budding rivalry, Kentucky and Texas A&M will take it down to the wire and fans will be sitting on the edge of their seats. That’s exactly what UK is preparing for.
“It’s going to be a fist fight,” Barbee said. “All of our games have been. They’ve been down to the wire, so we expect nothing less.”
Briscoe’s Triple-Double Leads Cats Past Ole Miss
Any concerns whether No. 8/8 Kentucky could bounce back from a tough road loss to an archrival were eliminated Thursday night in less than five minutes.
Malik Monk scored 34 points and Isaiah Briscoe had a triple-double — the second of the season and just the third in school history — as the Wildcats used an early surge to roll to a 99-76 victory over Mississippi in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams.
The Wildcats (11-2) showed no emotional hangover or playing rust after losing at No. 6 Louisville eight days ago. UK used a 13-0 run to build a 21-7 lead with 15:16 left in the first half and never looked back.
Briscoe recorded 19 points, a career-high 11 assists and 10 rebounds for the Wildcats, who led 60-41 at halftime and were never seriously threatened. Bam Adebayo added a career-high 25 points, primarily on the strength of a career-high eight dunks.
Monk finished 11 of 16 from the field, including 5 of 7 from 3-point range, and added six rebounds and three steals. Adebayo was 12 of 19 from the field and blocked three shots.
Kentucky shot 50 percent from the field and 44 percent from 3-point range. There were a whole lot of notes from this one:
• Briscoe’s triple-double was the third in school history. UK had just one triple double in school history before this season but now has two this season alone before January (De’Aaron Fox recorded one vs. Arizona State). With the latest triple-double, Briscoe and Fox are now the first pair of teammates in SEC history to log triple-doubles in the same season
• UK’s 23-point margin of victory was its most in an SEC opener since Jan. 2, 1999, vs. Florida, a 35-point win
• The Wildcats improved to 7-1 in SEC openers under John Calipari
• They also improved to 36-7 in “bounce-back” games following a loss
• UK’s 99 points were …
– The most in a true road game in the Calipari era
– The most in an SEC road game since a 103-95 victory at Tennessee on Feb. 14, 2001
– The most in an SEC opener since a 107-82 win over Vanderbilt on Jan. 4, 1994
• Kentucky improved to an impressive 105-13 vs. Ole Miss in the all-time series
• The Wildcats scored 18 fastbreak points in the first half
• UK’s 60 points in the first half were the most in the Calipari era and the third-most points in any half in his tenure
• Kentucky shot 61.5 percent in the first half. The previous best in a half this year was 55.4 percent
• Monk’s game-high 34 points are the most by a freshman in school history in a road game. With the 30-point game, Monk joined Jamal Murray as the only freshmen in school history with multiple games of 30 points or more. Murray had three such games last season
• Monk has scored 20 points or more in seven of the last nine games. He’s made five or more 3-pointers in three games
• Adebayo’s career-high 25 points marked his 10th straight game in double figures
• Derek Willis posted seven points and nine rebounds. It was his third time in the last four games with eight or more rebounds
Year of the Triple-Double?
It’s funny how history works. Prior to this season, Kentucky had just one triple-double in school history, dating all the way back to program’s inception in 1903. Chris Mills pulled off the initial and only one prior to this season on Dec. 27, 1988, but for all the great players to put on the UK uniform, that was it.
Until this season.
After an almost unbelievable absence of triple-doubles, the Wildcats (De’Aaron Fox and Isaiah Briscoe) have not only ended the drought this season, they’ve pulled off the feat twice — in a seven-game span.
Fox was the first. On a night of record-setting accomplishments and a collective offensive outburst from the Wildcats in a 115-69 win over Arizona State in the Bahamas, Fox posted 14 points, a career-high 11 rebounds and 10 assists in 31 minutes of play, Fox recorded just the second triple-double in school history.
Only a month later, Briscoe turned the trick with 19 points, a career-high 11 assists and 10 rebounds in a 99-73 victory at Ole Miss. Briscoe had eight points, nine assists and six rebounds by halftime.
With Briscoe’s triple-double, Fox and Briscoe became the first pair of teammates in Southeastern Conference history to log triple- doubles in the same season. With the way history has worked this season, could the Wildcats make it three?
More Overtime in Store for UK-Texas A&M?
Because Texas A&M is fairly new to the league, the Wildcats and Aggies don’t have a tremendous amount of history. They’ve played just nine times total, with UK leading the series 6-3. The early narrative in their short history, however, is nail-bitingly close games.
Four of the last five games between the two schools have gone to overtime, including the last three. UK has won three of those four overtime games, including the 82-77 thriller in last season’s Southeastern Conference Tournament championship.
The two schools shared the SEC regular-season title last year as well.
