KSR's top takeaways from Kentucky's 41-point win over Purdue

Kentucky played its first power conference opponent of the year on Tuesday. Surely, it was somewhat of a close and competitive game, right? Right? No. The Cats absolutely dominated Purdue, beating them 76-35 in Historic Memorial Coliseum to sweep the home-and-home series between the two programs.

Here are KSR’s top takeaways from the beatdown that ensued on the Boilermakers.

Jordan Obi is finding her fit within the offense it seems

Jordan Obi put up 15 points and 15 rebounds in her first game in the blue and white against Morehead State, but for the next several games, she hadn’t quite played to that level. Then, against Marshall, she erupted for a team-high 17 points. She carried over that momentum against Purdue.

On Tuesday, Obi dropped 17 points again — tied for the team-high alongside Clara Strack. She shot 6-10 from the field overall and 2-4 from three-point range.

Obi has had to figure out where she fits in the Kentucky offense, especially with how she’s changed positions from her time at Penn. Hopefully, this two-game stretch sort of signifies that Obi is getting more comfortable within the offense.

Holding any power conference opponent to 35 points is impressive

Kentucky’s defense continued to look like one of the best in the country against Purdue. Are the Boilermakers a great team? No. Are they even an average team? Not sure. However, what you can be sure about is Kentucky’s defensive prowess.

Purdue, of course, scored just 35 points on the night. I don’t care what you say, holding any Big Ten team to under 30 points is impressive. On the year, Kentucky is allowing their opponents to score just 43.5 points per game, and in the last three games, just 36.3 points per game.

They say defense wins championships, and if Kentucky can continue to put up those kinds of numbers on that end of the floor, maybe we can start dreaming just a little bit.

When this team gets cold offensively, they don’t always stay cold

Kentucky started the game off hot, got cold, got hot again, got cold again, then ended the game on another hot streak.

Clearly, this Kentucky team, when it comes to its offense, is going to be very off and on. Some night’s, they’ll shot 17-35 from three. Some nights, they’ll go 5-29. On Tuesday, they shot 11-30 (37%) from deep. You’ll take that.

When Kentucky does get cold, they usually respond. Late in the third quarter, Kentucky went over two minutes without scoring. So, over the course of the final three minutes of the quarter, they went on an 8-0 run. To end the game, Kentucky went on a 14-2 run. You hear a lot about complementary football, but there’s an element of that on the hardwood too, and Kentucky is playing some serious complementary basketball right now.