At least Otega Oweh played well against North Carolina

Tuesday night was a disaster for Kentucky men’s basketball. Let’s go ahead and get that part out of the way. I don’t need to sit here and list off all the terrible stats from the Wildcats’ 67-64 loss to North Carolina (but come on: 10 full minutes without a field goal??). We all know it was a bad basketball game — from both teams, truthfully.

But I can at least send a little bit of praise toward Otega Oweh, who finally had his breakout game after a poor (for his standards) start to his SEC Preseason Player of the Year campaign.

Oweh was not the reason Kentucky came up short against the Tar Heels. The 6-foot-4 senior guard finished with 16 points (tying a season-high), four rebounds, two assists, two steals, and two blocks in a season-high 33 minutes. He shot 6-11 from the field by doing exactly what the fan base (and this writer specifically) was asking for: cutting out the threes and replacing them with drives to the paint.

Oweh took just one triple on Tuesday, which he missed, but got to the line several times and converted in the paint. His six free-throw attempts, of which he made four, marked a season high. He ran the floor well in transition. His shot map looked a lot more like what it did a season ago. It was a much-needed improvement from his 8-25 combined shooting mark against Louisville and Michigan State.

But it wasn’t just the offensive side of the ball where Oweh made his mark. His defensive effort and impact were an obvious step up from the first two ranked matchups. Mark Pope said after Kentucky’s win over Loyola (MD) that he felt like Oweh’s commitment on defense was better than it had been all season. He carried that over into last week’s win over Tennessee Tech and then again against the Tar Heels.

“I thought Otega’s effort was terrific tonight,” Pope said. “Minus some fatigue plays, I thought he was really solid and there were some positive signs for sure.”

Oweh wasn’t the only Kentucky player who had good moments against UNC. Andrija Jelavić played terrific defense against future NBA lottery pick Caleb Wilson. Malachi Moreno was solid once again as the starting center. But if the ‘Cats have any chance of turning this season around, they’ll need more performances like this from Oweh on a game-to-game basis.