UK Fends Off Second-Half Rally to Top Mississippi State

STARKVILLE, Miss. – It wasn’t pretty by any means, but then again, a road win in the Southeastern Conference is never ugly.

What Tuesday night at Mississippi State definitely was for No. 5/5 Kentucky was a rude awakening that head coach John Calipari’s concerns about his team’s “undisciplined basketball,” as he calls it, have not dissipated.

“Again, we go into the AAU mode,” Coach John Calipari said. “When you’re playing all freshmen and sophomores, there’s a point in the game that they just think it’s like, ‘OK, watch this.’ You’re never going to be that team if that’s what your mindset is.”

The Wildcats (16-2, 6-0 SEC) played one of their sloppiest games of the season inside a raucous Humphrey Coliseum, but held off a furious second-half rally by the Bulldogs for an 88-81 victory over the Bulldogs (12-5, 3-2 SEC).

Just one game earlier, Coach Cal said he believed his team was one month away from being the team he thought they could be. But after Tuesday night’s game in which Kentucky committed 16 turnovers, its second highest total of the season, and allowed Mississippi State to shoot 54.2 percent from the field, a season-high by a UK opponent, he changed his mind.

“We’re still leaving timeouts and guys are doing exactly the opposite of what (I say),” Calipari said. “’We’re not setting a moving screen this time. So, I don’t care if you even screen the guy. Do not …’ And the guy set a moving screen. We’re up 16, ready to go to … ‘What did you just do?’ That’s who we are right now. I thought we were a month away; we may be two months away.”

Kentucky took a 64-46 lead with 12:19 to play in the game on a Malik Monk dunk after a beautiful lob from De’Aaron Fox. Monk, however, was called for a technical foul for hanging on the rim, harkening back memories to UK’s game at LSU during the 2014-15 season when Karl-Anthony Towns was called for a technical for hanging and pulling up on the rim. Similar to that game, momentum shifted immediately after the play.

Mississippi State promptly went on a 16-2 run over the next three minutes and 23 seconds following the technical foul. During that stretch, Kentucky hit just 1-of-5 field-goal attempts and turned the ball over four times in a five-possession stretch.

“I don’t know what really caused that, but we just made a couple mistakes,” freshman forward Wenyen Gabriel said. “People will probably call it young mistakes. We’re learning from that and hopefully by the time March (arrives) that doesn’t happen.”

Leading by five with less than four minutes to play, Fox took over for Kentucky. The 6-foot-3 point guard scored nine consecutive points for the Wildcats on 3-for-4 shooting, ensuring MSU would get no closer while also giving UK a seven-point cushion with 47 seconds remaining. He finished with a team-high 21 points.

“Honestly, right now with this team we don’t – teams have a go-to person, (but) we don’t have that right now,” Fox said. “So, whoever has the hot hand that game is the one that does it. One game Malik did it – the North Carolina game Malik did it. The Vanderbilt game, Isaiah (Briscoe) kind of did it. This game it was my turn.”

One game after grabbing a career-high 16 rebounds, freshman forward Wenyen Gabriel showed he had some offense to his game as well. Gabriel scored 13 points, his second highest total of the year and highest since scoring 15 points against UT Martin on Nov. 25. The 6-9 forward was a perfect 5 for 5 from the field, including a career-high three 3-pointers. He also pulled down a team-high eight rebounds and blocked three shots.

“Wenyen is starting to get it,” Calipari said. “He’ll break down a couple times in the game, but he’s starting to get it.”

“I think it was kind of a follow up from the last game,” Gabriel said. “My confidence has been picking up. I’m kind of just trying to use that momentum to push forward through SEC (play).”

After going just 4 for 20 from 3-point range over Kentucky’s first 16 games, Gabriel has knocked down 5 of 6 over the past two games. On the glass, he’s corralled 24 rebounds over the past two games to raise his season average from 5.1 rebounds per game to 6.2.

“I guess you could say he’s out of his shell, but we always knew he could shoot,” Fox said of Gabriel. “… Today, everybody else saw him. He was 5 for 5, 3 for 3 from 3. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it multiple times this year. When he has his confidence going, when he’s talking and bouncing on defense, everything just starts to flow. He didn’t have 16 rebounds, but he had eight rebounds, almost another double-double. Him keep doing what he’s doing, I feel like it’s tough for people to beat us, especially when he’s making shots.”

Tuesday night’s game featured a combined 52 foul calls, which has been a common theme with Kentucky games of late. In fact, over the past four games, 195 fouls have been called in UK’s games, an average of 48.75 combined fouls per game.

Against Vanderbilt and Auburn, UK’s backcourt was the one most often plagued by foul problems, especially in the first half. Against Mississippi State, it was UK’s frontcourt, as forwards Bam Adebayo, Gabriel, Sacha Killeya-Jones, Isaac Humphries and Derek Willis each had two fouls.

“Of course it’s difficult because the game keeps stopping, but you just have to fight through it,” Fox said. “I mean, they had to go through it too. Both teams had foul trouble. Even if we lost I can’t give an excuse just because both teams had to go through it. We weren’t the only team that went through it.”

So after four consecutive games with 40-plus fouls, a few off-shooting nights from some of its stars and continued head-scratching plays in key situations, Kentucky remains undefeated in league action. Still, Calipari wants more.

“We just have a long way to go,” Coach Cal said. “I know we’re winning games, I know we’re winning some close games where teams are coming at us and we’re finishing, but when you get a team down – (Monk) hung on the rim when we were up 18. Why would you do that? ‘There was a guy.’ No, no, there was no one near you. You chinned up. He had to call the tech. But it wasn’t just him.”