CATS battle back to defeat Arkansas 70-66
Lexington, Kentucky – February 26, 2019 – Michael Willis – Bluegrass Sports Nation
The Arkansas Razorbacks came into Rupp Arena tonight to face the Wildcats in a late 9 pm tip. Kentucky, who dominated Auburn in the game Saturday, is in a three-way tie for the SEC Championship with Tennessee and LSU. Their great play recently has put them in contention for a one seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The Razorbacks were looking to snap a 6 game losing streak
against the Cats and break their current losing streak of 5 straight SEC loses.
A win for Kentucky would be 14 wins in the last 15 games and and give Calipari
his 299th win as UK’s coach.
The Cats were sluggish at the start of the game and found
themselves down eight with 10 minutes left in the first half and it didn’t get
any better from there. Kentucky had 12 first half turnovers that led to 14
points for Arkansas. Meanwhile, Kentucky’s defense only forced 1 turnover and
they allowed Arkansas’ Isaiah Joe to score 16 points in the half. The Rupp
Arena crowd was silent for most of the half after watching their Cats end the
half down 28 to 39.
Coming out of the locker room the Cats started out on the
right foot and went on a 6 point run cutting the Arkansas lead to 9. Kentucky
tightened down on defense and after a 21 to 6 run P.J. Washington tied the game
at 51 with 8:10 remaining in the game. It was a close contest the rest of the
game with Kentucky holding a slight margin. With 2 seconds left on the clock
Big Blue Nation held their breath when the referees went to the monitor to
review who the ball when out on. Immanual Quickley sealed the victory for the
Cats hitting 2 free-throws with 1.3 seconds remaining to give UK a 70-66 win.
It was a tremendous effort by Tyler Herro who scored a career
high 29 points, shot 90% from the field, and hit 5 of his 6 three-pointers.
Nick Richards also had a career night grabbing 15 rebounds and had 3 blocks.
The difference in the two halves was the amount of intensity
of Kentucky’s defense. They forced only one turnover in the first half, but
caused the Razorbacks to turn the ball over 6 times in the second. The Wildcats
also only allowed Isaiah Joe to score 3 points in the second half. Their
defense also got the Rupp Arena crowd to finally start cheering.
The Cats’ ability to come back from 15 points down to win was
impressive. Hopefully, they wont find themselves down double digits when they
travel to Knoxville to take on the Volunteers this Saturday. The game can be
viewed on CBS at 2 p.m.
