By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Shorthanded Kentucky gave Alabama its best shot before the Tide wore down the Wildcats in the second half and advanced to the Southeastern Conference Tournament semifinals with a 99-70 rout on Friday night at Bridgestone Arena.
The loss ended Kentucky’s three-game winning streak and gave the Crimson Tide a rare three-peat against the Wildcats this season. Alabama (25-7) swept the two regular-season games and defeated Kentucky for just the third time in 20 tries in the league tournament.
Coming off a thrilling 85-84 triumph over Oklahoma on Thursday night, Kentucky struggled to emulate the same success, especially without its floor leader and its leading scorer, Otega Oweh, playing limited minutes after taking a hit to the face in the first half on an Alabama scoring play.
“Congratulations to Alabama, they played a great game tonight,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “They were aggressive tonight and played well and had a good pace. We were frustrated with our performance tonight.”
The Wildcats were without point guard Lamont Butler, who re-aggravated his injured shoulder against the Sooners. Freshman Travis Perry started in place of Butler as Kentucky used a makeshift backcourt by committee to offset the absence of Butler.
Kentucky (22-11) committed 16 turnovers and the Crimson Tide capitalized on those miscues. Alabama scored 29 points off those miscues, 14 in the first half. The Crimson Tide forced the Wildcats into eight turnovers, resulting in 14 points in transition to forge a 45-37 lead.
“They thrive off of a lot of things that we didn’t do too well today,” Kentucky senior Koby Brea said. “They’re really good at getting out in transition. And we had a couple of bad turnovers that made it very easy for them.”
While turnovers were an issue, Kentucky also could not contain Alabama’s hot shooting in the second half. The Crimson Tide connected on 11 3-pointers, including nine in the second half.
Oweh, who scored the game-winner at the buzzer and 27 points against Oklahoma, required stitches to his lip after taking a blow to his face early in the first half. Oweh scored just eight points and failed to reach double figures for just the third time this season.
Oweh said the bump to his lip didn’t play a role in his lack of production.
“This wasn’t one of my better games,” he said. “It (the lip) didn’t affect (my game) at all.”
Andrew Carr led the Wildcats with 18 points, followed by Amari Williams with 16 and Perry contributed 11.
Labaron Philon led Alabama with 21 points, followed by Jarin Stevenson with 16 points, while Mark Sears and Mouhamed Dioubate added 13 points each and Aden Holloway finished with 11.
Capped by Alabama’s victory over the Wildcats, the top four seeds won in the quarterfinal round and advanced to the semifinals set for Saturday.
Top-seeded Auburn will take on Tennessee in the first game of a doubleheader, followed by Alabama and Florida. The winners will meet in the finale set for Sunday.
Kentucky will await its destination for next week’s NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats are projected to be a No. 3 seed. The pairings will be announced on Sunday.
“We didn’t come this far to just come this far,” Carr said. “We’re looking in the mirror, trying to continue to get better and focus on the NCAA tournament.”