No. 12 Kentucky flexed its muscles Saturday in an 80-62 win over No. 5 Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. The Wildcats looked every bit the national championship contender in building a 20-point halftime edge, with Kansas never getting closer than 14 points in the final 20 minutes.
Keion Brooks Jr. scored a career-high 27 points and grabbed eight rebounds while Oscar Tshiebwe had another double-double with 17 points, 14 rebounds and four steals.
Kentucky led by as many as 24 points and led for more than 37:30 of the 40-minute contest.
Kentucky held Kansas to an 12-for-26 night on layups and dunks, dominated on the glass and never let the Jayhawks’ top five offense get going.
Kentucky (17-4) will take on Vanderbilt on Wednesday, while Kansas (17-3) faces a tough trip to Iowa State on Tuesday.
Here are three takeaways from Kentucky’s win:
Kentucky shows off vicious ‘A’ game again
Kentucky may just have the best ‘A’ game in the country. The Wildcats absolutely dominated in building a 20-point halftime lead, one that swelled to 22 points in the second half. It was a similar look to when the Wildcats jumped all over North Carolina, or more recently, Kentucky’s 107-79 victory over Tennessee.
The Wildcats were the aggressors from the opening tip, dominating inside both with power and quickness. Kentucky got the lane whenever it wanted, and generally finished when the Wildcats got there. Kentucky was strong with the ball, limiting turnovers, and forced Kansas out of its comfort zone on the other end.
Kansas entered the day as the fourth No. 1 seed, according to CBS Sports Bracketology Expert Jerry Palm, but was utterly outmatched in every way. Palm said the Jayhawks will drop off that No. 1 seed line to a No. 2, and will be replaced by Wisconsin.
Kentucky came in as a No. 4 seed, but the Wildcats displayed once again that they have all the pieces for a deep tournament run.
Wildcats’ wealth of options
In this case, “all the pieces” means pieces at every single spot. Tshiebwe is the best board man in recent memory and is an All-America candidate. Sahvir Wheeler is playing like an All-SEC point guard. Kellan Grady has made four 3-pointers in each of Kentucky’s last three games. TyTy Washington is a five-star freshman who ranked second on the team in both scoring and assists, and he’s scored 20 or more points four times this year, including 28 in the win over Tennessee.
And then there’s Keion Brooks. At different points in his Kentucky career, he’s been discussed as a possible All-SEC player. And he looked like that, and more, against Kansas. Brooks scored 27 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field and had a 9-of-10 night from the free-throw line, and his work on the glass and sweet stroke in the midrange meant Kansas couldn’t ever really generate momentum to come back in.
Brooks’ performance meant that all five Kentucky starters have scored at least 21 points in a game this year. And the only one who hasn’t scored at least 26 in a game this season is Grady, who scored 2,002 points and hit that threshold multiple times at Davidson.
Add in Jacob Toppin adding athleticism, defense and energy off the bench — and scoring 11 points in 11 minutes — and the leadership and experience of a guard like Davion Mintz as a key reserve, and Kentucky has everything a team could want.
Back to the chalkboard time for Kansas
This isn’t a new spot for Kansas. The Jayhawks have suffered double-digit losses in January and used those to morph into strong teams at the end of the season. Both the 2016 and 2017 Kansas teams actually rebounded with wins against Kentucky immediately following double-digit losses within the conference.
The 2018 Final Four team was bullied by Texas Tech, then fell by 16 at Baylor in early February before starting to turn things around. The 2020 team was trounced by Baylor at Allen Fieldhouse, then didn’t lose again. And even last year’s team lost five of seven games through February 6 before building a high-level defense and ending the regular season on a high note with some adjustments.
After the Jayhawks were dominated inside against Kentucky, don’t be surprised if one adjustment is to continue to slide more minutes the way of freshman KJ Adams at the five.
Expect Remy Martin’s use to be panned once again: after playing 22 minutes against Texas Tech — the most he’d played since Jan. 4 — but not logging any minutes down the stretch or in either overtime, Martin played 14 minutes against Kentucky.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism