KSR's top takeaways from Kentucky's overwhelming win over Eastern Illinois

With the weight of the world on Kentucky‘s shoulders to finish the job, the Wildcats came, saw and conquered in the BBN United Tipoff Classic Presented by Kentucky Tourism. That’s easier said than done, up 2-0 in the event and the target on your back with the opponent playing with desperation — but no dice for those pesky Eastern Illinois Panthers. Only one team could leave Rupp Arena with a trophy, and the Wildcats did all it could to earn it in convincing fashion and bring on the confetti.

And when I say convincing fashion, I mean never close with EIU overwhelmed from the opening tip. The final score is irrelevant (99-53, for those curious) — we needed to see UK respond well coming off a disheartening performance at Louisville earlier in the week, and that’s exactly what the Cats did.

How did it all come together for the blue and white? KSR has all of the top takeaways from Rupp Arena as Kentucky moves to 3-1 on the season.

A suffocating defensive effort against a bad team

Two things can be true: Kentucky was very good defensively against a very bad Eastern Illinois team.

The Panthers shot just 24.1 percent from the field and 27.3 percent from three in the first half, then finished knocking down just 32.7 percent of their attempts overall and 33.3 percent from deep. There was a nice little offensive flurry for them in the second half when the Wildcats took their foot off the gas, but it meant next to nothing in the grand scheme of things — holding any opponent to 53 points is impressive.

Again, we’ll need to see their response against name-brand competition with a real offense — Michigan State at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday is a good start — but this was a step in the right direction after about a dozen steps backward at Louisville.

Responding without Jaland Lowe

All eyes are on the point guard position with Lowe reinjuring his right shoulder and his status now in question moving forward, out for the EIU win and who knows how long after that.

“We don’t have anything yet, so we’ll probably have some discussions over the next couple of days about what’s the best thing to do right now,” Pope said. “That’s probably the point where we are right now.”

In the meantime (or permanently, depending on how those talks go), it’s the Denzel Aberdeen show with Jasper Johnson and Collin Chandler. Aberdeen went for 13 points on 6-9 shooting while adding three boards, two steals and an assist in a team-high 23 minutes — and a +37 in the plus/minus, for those interested in that sort of thing. From there, Johnson added eight points, seven assists and five rebounds, followed by Chandler with four points and four assists.

The main issue against Louisville was the assist-to-turnover ratio — a 14-14 finish compared to 20-6 for the Cardinals. How did things go this time around? 17 assists on 31 made baskets with 13 turnovers is not the best, but it should be noted ten of those turnovers came from bigs — only one combined from Aberdeen, Chandler, Otega Oweh, Kam Williams and Trent Noah. Jasper Johnson was the only other player with multiple turnovers, finishing with two.

Has Kam Williams figured it out?

It’s not fair to say the Tulane transfer didn’t make an impact to begin his Kentucky career, because Williams did his best rebounding and defending when the shots weren’t falling, but he was clearly struggling with confidence. That pushed him toward the back of the rotation — and essentially out of it completely, until desperate times called for desperate measures with the Cats down a hundred against Louisville. He got thrown in there and helped lead the charge on their comeback down 20 points to cut it to four, finishing with five points, four rebounds and a block in 12 minutes of action.

Williams was then rewarded with nine first-half minutes against the Panthers, followed by 11 in the second to finish with six points on 2-4 shooting from three while adding two assists, two rebounds and a steal. We also got to see him play extended time at the four, Pope toying around with some different lineup combinations — but trusting the sophomore wing to contribute wherever he was on the floor.

He didn’t make all four attempts, but he was confident in all four, and that’s how he got two to fall. There is more where that comes from, it appears.

Mo Dioubate was a game-wrecker with seventh career double-double, but Pope wants more

Eastern Illinois came in at a serious size disadvantage, but it wasn’t the tallest or heaviest guy on the floor that ended up torching the Panthers on both ends of the floor. Instead, it was 6’7″, 220-pound Mo Dioubate taking the game over, finishing with a game-high 20 points on 8-9 shooting and 4-5 at the line while adding 11 rebounds, two blocks, two steals and an assist in 22 minutes. Of those 11 boards, four of them came on the offensive glass as the team racked up 22 second-chance points.

He’s only had six career double-doubles up to this point in 73 total games — this one made seven, and he certainly earned it. There wasn’t much EIU could do on either end of the floor to slow him down.

The crazy part, though, is that Pope still expects more from Dioubate, saying that while “we saw some good signs from Mo,” his defensive effort was poor in the first half and he should be making a significantly larger impact than what we’re seeing out of him now.

“I think we are leaving a lot on the table in terms of how disruptive we can be. I thought he made some progress towards that. It’s going to be a big deal for him,” Pope said, adding that he should be the best defensive player in the country alongside Otega Oweh, but “so far, they haven’t been close.”

Speaking of Otega Oweh…

The SEC Preseason Player of the Year was fine, but again, fine isn’t good enough for Oweh. He’s way too talented and valuable to this team, especially if Lowe is out for an extended period of time, not to dominate. Coming off his worst performance as a Wildcat, he followed it up with 12 points on 4-7 shooting to go with three assists and two rebounds in just 18 minutes — ninth on the team.

As Pope said, “they haven’t been close” to where they need to be defensively, and that’s what found him on the bench again tonight. For one reason or another, he’s getting lost on that end of the floor, even against this level of competition after really struggling against the Cardinals a few days before. This is coming off an All-SEC junior campaign where the game typically looked easy for him. Now, he’ll get his easy runout dunks and layups, but that’s essentially the extent of his impact.

He can and should be better — even in a 46-point win. The standard is higher for him now.

No one played more than 23 minutes

There were times against Louisville when it felt that Pope was just throwing things against the wall and seeing what stuck when it came to the rotation with undefined roles across the board. Down a starting point guard and still missing Jayden Quaintance, it was a wide ten on Friday against Eastern Illinois, every player seeing between 15 and 23 minutes on the floor.

Of that group, five different players scored in double figures while all ten earned buckets, nine scoring multiple. Depth was on full display, but it was a controlled attack that came in waves and really just saw one person in takeover mode in Dioubate.

“We are still learning ourselves, and unfortunately for us, we have to break a lot of stuff before we fix it,” Pope said. “Right now is where we feel like we are, which is okay. Because the growing part of the season is incredibly painful and frustrating and leaves you with a lot of doubts.  But it’s actually, if you step back, it’s actually a really beautiful process. 

“So yes, this team is built to function like that and if we embrace it, then we have a chance to be good.”