KSR’s takeaways from Kentucky’s unfathomable collapse in College Station

It’s hard to process exactly what just happened in College Station for Kentucky. Imagine watching Malachi Moreno score to put the Cats up 12 with eight minutes to go in the first half and having your power go out or nodding off in your recliner just blissfully unaware, then checking your phone or TV in the morning and seeing that not only did they lose — or even lose by double-digits, for that matter — but that they trailed by 12 at halftime and by as many as 21 in the second half.

That’s not even considering Big Blue Nation’s strong presence at Reed Arena and Aggie fans choosing to watch their baseball team run-rule Incarnate Word down the street over Senior Day festivities to put a bow on year one of Bucky Ball at home. There was real GBB potential in a statement road win to add another Quad 1 victory to the resume.

Like always with this group, though, it was another two steps back coming off a step forward, giving up 96 points on 1.457 PPP in the 11-point loss. Texas A&M was desperate and fighting for its NCAA Tournament life on the bubble, but Kentucky had plenty to play for itself, too, one win away from locking up a bye in Nashville and a 2-0 week away from likely starting on Friday with the double. Then Mark Pope and the Wildcats blew it by giving up a 27-3 run going into halftime, leading to an 11th loss on the year with a 12th highly likely — KenPom projects an 81-74 home defeat vs. Florida — to end a wildly underwhelming regular season without a ton of optimism going into the postseason.

How did we get here, the Wildcats trailing by 15-plus in nine games this season and somehow staring down the barrel of a Wednesday start at the SEC Tournament? KSR has the top takeaways.

A 12-point lead to a 12-point deficit

Speaking of that Moreno bucket to go up 12, the Wildcats were shooting a ridiculous 70.5 percent from the field and 50 percent from three at the time, as comfortable and efficient offensively as one could ever dream. Knowing the Aggies had lost six of eight with fan interest waning, the road underdog positioned itself to pop that bubble with a runaway victory — essentially a perfect first 12 minutes.

Then came Ruben Dominguez to drop it to nine.

Pope took out Andrija Jelavic, Trent Noah and Moreno to put in Collin Chandler, Brandon Garrison and Mo Dioubate, only for A&M cut it to five. Otega Oweh and Denzel Aberdeen were replaced by Trent Noah and Jasper Johnson, and then 24 seconds later, Jelavic checked back in for Dioubate, leaving a five-man group of Johnson, Chandler, Noah, Jelavic and Garrison out on the floor.

Dominguez responds with back-to-back 3-pointers to make it a one-point UK deficit as the basket expands to a hundred feet in the eyes of the sophomore sniper.

That was a 13-0 run for the Aggies, which would become a 27-3 run going into halftime, flipping a 12-point lead into a 12-point deficit at the break. The home team would then open the half on another 9-3 run to make it 36-6 overall, which became a 44-10 run to push the lead to 21 points with 10:37 to go in the game.

Kentucky may specialize in comebacks this season, but not when forced to overcome epic collapses, one that saw Texas A&M start the day with shooting splits of 29/13/63 and finish the second half with a red-hot 55/64/74.

A&M played the game it wanted to play

Bucky Ball is designed to create chaos and force opponents to play more rushed than fast, pressuring and throwing wacky defenses out there to see if teams can make self-inflicted mistakes. The result against the Wildcats? 13 forced turnovers leading to 18 points the other way and 14 total fastbreak points.

The Aggies also entered the day ranked second nationally in bench points at 36.2 per game with reserves hitting the 30-point mark in 17 of A&M’s previous 29 games. They’d score 57 points off the bench compared to 39 for Kentucky to create a plus-18 advantage. Now, you have to factor in that it was Senior Night for A&M, so their starting lineup was completely different this time out compared to normal, but seven of nine rotation players still played 20-plus minutes with the two outliers hitting 11-plus and no one with more than 29.

Point being, this wasn’t Sam Malone immediately fouling after the opening tip and stat-padding bench points — five players scored in double figures, including two starters.

A&M likes to take and make threes, ranked in the top 15 nationally in both categories? 13-28 on the day for a 46.4 percent hit rate. No. 20 nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.7? 16-7 for a 2.3 against UK. The Aggies didn’t try to be something they weren’t — severely undersized, they still lost the rebounding battle (41-38) and got crushed in the paint (42-26) — but still managed to win their way comfortably.

A few bright spots (but not nearly enough)

We don’t do moral victories around here — certainly not when you choke away a double-digit lead in embarrassing fashion. The loss sucked a big fat one, period.

I’d like to give props to Mo Dioubate, though, for fighting all 22 minutes he was on the floor, finishing with 19 points on 8-9 shooting with seven rebounds and an assist. To play as hard as he did while fasting for Ramadan was admirable and his effort is always appreciated, no matter how much fuel he has in the tank.

Trent Noah finally got some shots to fall — the Cats could use more of that over the next couple of weeks — and he continued to attack the glass, but somehow became the first basketball player in history to roll his ankle on his head coach’s foot after an attempt (I have no idea if that stat is true, but there can’t be many instances of that level of freak injury). We’ll take his nine points (2-5 3PT, 3-3 FT) and three rebounds in 12 minutes.

Brandon Garrison had one of his better all-around performances of the season with eight points (4-6 FG), four rebounds, one assist, one block and one steal, ignoring two bad turnovers and some defensive lapses. Otega Oweh was in a similar boat with phenomenal counting stats (24 PTS, 9 REB, 5 AST, 3 STL), but poor shot selection (6-15 FG) and turnovers (3) weighing the team down. Denzel Aberdeen’s nine-point, eight-assist, one-turnover day can be lumped into the solid-not-great category.

Generally speaking, though, Kentucky just didn’t have it today, and that’s pretty darn frustrating with one regular season matchup to go. How is Pope talking about ‘effort‘ and playing ‘careless’ basketball in game No. 30? How is Garrison able to say ‘we relax as a team’ with a straight face during postgame radio, talking about complacency with big leads? Does anyone in that locker room realize there are three more guaranteed games before the season comes to a screeching halt, potentially just three losses from going home for good?

Gotta be better across the board, plain and simple.

Kentucky isn’t dead… yet

A win would have secured a single bye in Nashville, but the loss left the possibility of a Wednesday start on the table — a worst-case scenario for the Wildcats. As things stand going into the final weekend of the regular season, Kentucky is in a four-way tie for fifth with Vanderbilt, Missouri and Texas A&M. A loss to Florida on Saturday could drop UK all the way down to a No. 10 seed, just a demoralizing turn of events, considering where things were through three entire game segments in College Station. They were that close, yet so far away, clearly.

Here’s the thing, though: Kentucky isn’t dead just yet.

All it takes — and it’s quite the hypothetical, I’m aware — is a win for the Cats over the Gators on Saturday with Arkansas beating Mizzou and Vanderbilt beating Tennessee. That would not only secure a single bye for UK, but a double, as crazy as it sounds. Just pulling off the victory without worrying about the rest of the SEC would likely set up a Thursday start, too, so at least we have that going for us.

Everything about Tuesday night stunk for the blue and white, but they can still wash off the stench this weekend and build some momentum going into the SEC Tournament. It’s unlikely, but possible.