Three takeaways from Kentucky Basketball's 64-58 win over the Texas A&M Aggies Wednesday night in College Station:
1. Kentucky wins a Super Bowl Kentucky is everyone's Super Bowl.
That's what John Calipari says. every night. every game. Especially every road game. In the 2021-22 Super Bowls, however, the Cats were 0-2. They lost 66–62 before a packed home at Notre Dame. They lost 65-60 before a packed home at LSU. (Timed out: A 78-66 victory at Vanderbilt on January 11 didn't count. Memorial Gym was far from a packed house. And most of the attendees were Kentucky fans. Once again, the Big Blue Nation Turned Nashville blue.) With Texas A&M 15-2 on aggregate and 4-0 in the SEC, and Kentucky coming into the city, Reed Arena was packed Wednesday night. This was the largest crowd of 14,036 in the history of the venue. And it was loud. There were special T-shirts for this occasion. Of course there were T-shirts. There was a whitewash. Of course. “It’s always a white-out, or a red-out, or a black-out,” Calipari later joked as he bought into T-shirt companies to get his share of the action.
And for a good portion of the game, it felt like emotional play would work. Texas A&M leads by 13 points. 25-12 in the first half with 7:23 remaining. Buzz Williams' team shot 50 percent off the floor in the first half. Even as Kentucky cut A&M's lead to five (35-30) at half-time, the Aggies took a 47-41 lead with 13:22 remaining. And yet Kentucky fought back. It was not beautiful. It was not particularly smooth. But the Cats rallied to take their first lead 49–48 with 9:01, then made enough plays to secure the win. Did the Cats learn more from winning this tight Super Bowl game on the road than from that 28-point blowout in Tennessee on Saturday? Jacob Toppin's answer: "One hundred percent."
2. Davian Mintz 'was the difference-maker in the game'
This was Calipari's comment in his postgame Zoom session. Here's why: Normally a sharp-shooter, Kellan Grady went 1-for-9 from behind the three-point line. Usually the catalyst behind the Cats' aggressive engine, Sehveer Wheeler, got the ball rolling eight times. Britain came into the game with 50.6 percent shooting from the floor. The Cats shot a season-low 36.2 percent against the aggressive Aggies defense. Kentucky was a putrid to 4-for-18 from the three-point boundary. Mintz was not a whole lot better, making only two of his seven shots. He made one of his five three-point attempts. But the sixth-year veteran scored 10 points, scored eight rebounds, made three assists and made it to the floor only twice in 30 minutes. His play was important. He got a lot of help from teammate Jacob Topin. Keenan Brooks struggled. Junior scored seven points and got two rebounds. When Brooks failed to fight for a turnover in the second half, Calipari could not bring Toppin back into the game fast enough. And Jacob delivered more than finishing with nine points and six rebounds.
Also, the night before, Toppin guarded every egg on the floor. After shooting 50 percent in the first half, Aggies scored 29.4 in the second. They missed 20 of their 22 three-point attempts. It's shooting an SEC-best 37.4 percent of three since entering the game. Back to Mintz. His three-pointer from the right corner with 6:54 left gave Kentucky a 54-52 lead. It was the biggest shot of the game, said Calipari, because it gave the audience confidence. "Our guys said, 'Oh yeah, we can win this,'" Calipari said.
3. A Good Road Win Before a Big Road Game
Auburn is next on the Big Blue Dock. Auburn is No. 2 in the latest AP Top 25, and probably should have been voted No. 1. Bruce Pearl's team is now 17-1 on aggregate and 6-0 in the SEC on Wednesday night after a poor Georgia 83-60. , Did we mention that Saturday's game is at Auburn Arena? That being said, the UK's Wednesday win inside the Reed Arena was a timed tune to a wild atmosphere on Saturday. Prior to this Texas Tour, all 14 of the Wildcats' wins were by double digits. Calipari's club was 0–3 in single digit games. not anymore. Kentucky did what it needed to do to win the game of possession-by-possession on the road. He is big. "I'm glad we came out with a win, no matter how ugly it was," Mintz said. Calipari has often said that he likes it when his team scores a poor percentage and still comes out with a win. I asked him if he wanted to shoot 67 percent and win 30 at home (Tennessee's 107-79 match last Saturday) or shoot 36 percent and win a close game on the road?
"We shot 36 percent?" Said the coach, who thought the box score was 38 percent. "that's even better." The Cats have to shoot better in Auburn than that Saturday. But now they know they can win a tough game on the road. On the next Super Bowl.