By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
For the first time this season No. 9 Kentucky suffered back-to-back losses following a 74-69 loss to Vanderbilt Saturday in Nashville.
The win was Vanderbilt’s first over the Wildcats at Memorial Gym since 2016, and it marked the Commodores’ second straight home win over a top 10 opponent. Vandy stunned No. 6 Tennessee last Saturday in Nashville.
Kentucky (14-5, 3-3 Southeastern Conference) trailed 41-27 at the break but rallied and outscored the Commodores 31-10 to take a 58-51 lead. Vandy (14-4, 4-3) then regained the lead for good with a 15-5 run and scored the final six points for the final margin.
Kentucky’s first-half scoring output (27 points) was its lowest of the season and the Wildcats committed 17 turnovers, including six by point guard Lamont Butler.
“They did a good job of getting us on our heels and that is super disappointing,” Pope said. ”This is a style of play that we love for teams to play. It’s a part of the game that when we’re at our past offensively, and for a bunch of reasons that I know, and some reason that I don’t, man, we were just heavy on our heels, and credit to Vanderbilt.”
Otega Oweh paced the Wildcats with 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Oweh scored 17 in the second half to help spark the team’s offense.
Making his first start of the year, Ansley Almonor added 12 and Jaxson Robinson scored 11 for the Wildcats. Almonor started in place of Andrew Carr. Carr has been battling back issues for most of the season and his return to the lineup is uncertain.
“We’re just kind of seeing a decline in his performance because there’s so much he can’t do with his back,” Pope said. “We were trending in the wrong direction, What we’re hoping is that we can get to space in the next few weeks or next few days where we have enough confidence … we can get him to a sustainable place where we can endure a practice or endure a game and not go back to square zero. We’ll see if that actually happens. It’s complicated. You’re dealing with percentages. You’re not dealing in guarantees.”
Kentucky got just 13 points from its reserves, a statistic that concerns Pope.
“I think every team is probably feeling some fatigue and frustration, and everybody’s dealing with injuries for sure and we’re not far away,” he said. “We have some real issues that we have to find some creative answers to but we’re not far away.”
With Carr out of the lineup, Kentucky got a lift from freshman Trent Noah, especially in the first half.
“I thought Trent gave us a real burst,” Pope said. “We have players good enough to win on our team but it wasn’t good enough to win tonight.”
The Wildcats will face Tennessee, another ranked foe on Tuesday in Knoxville.
“It’s such a fun, beautiful league and every night is going to be the biggest challenge of your season,” Pope said. “It’s nice because you don’t have to convince your guys that every single game.”
GAMETRACKER: Kentucky at Tennessee, 7 p.m., Tuesday. TV/Radio: ESPN, UK Radio Network.