KSR's top takeaways from Kentucky's win over No. 1 Purdue inside Rupp Arena

Well, that was fun. Kentucky steamrolled the No. 1 team in college basketball, defeating Purdue 78-65 to open the exhibition schedule for the Wildcats. How real was the performance for both teams? Should we hang banner No. 9 up in Rupp Arena now or wait for April when it’s official?

KSR has the top takeaways as Big Blue Nation comes down from the high of a dominant performance for Mark Pope’s second roster entering 2025-26.

Quick reminder: Kentucky was missing Lowe and JQ

We went into this game knowing it would be tough sledding without an All-SEC point guard in Jaland Lowe and a future top-five pick in Jayden Quaintance, both projected starters at full strength. Teams don’t function well without their leading playmaker and anchor in the middle, a loss totally understandable against a team as talented and experienced as Purdue — continuity is very real for the Boilermakers with a three-headed monster in Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer, combining for 295 starts with a title game appearance.

If one team was going to look closer together and ready for this moment, Matt Painter’s was the safe pick.

Then Kentucky managed to dominate the top-ranked competition in essentially every category — shooting overall (49% vs. 39%) and from three (31% vs. 18%), rebounding (42-30), assists (17-12), second-chance points (14-4), bench points (34-18), points in the paint (36-26), fastbreak points (15-5) and, of course, lead time (37:20 to 1:13).

Jasper Johnson is, shall we say, shifty?

Welcome to the show, kid. Goodness gracious, what a debut for Jasper Johnson, finishing with a team-high 15 points on 6-10 shooting and 3-7 from three while adding three assists, one rebound and one steal with just one turnover in 19 minutes.

We knew his role would expand with Lowe out, potentially even as a primary ball handler, and the Lexington native looked far more comfortable than possibly imagined. His first make was a simple catch-and-shoot look from the right wing, then he let loose with some insane attempts, including one behind-the-back, sidestep look from the left wing you’d only see from one Rob Dillingham. The audacity to fire that one up against the No. 1 team in the country? Are you kidding me?

He added another pull-up three, then a pair of nifty (shifty?) layups at the rim, his last absolutely the filthiest.

Jasper Johnson just boiled Purdue pic.twitter.com/ot429tT3bQ

— Rare Rookies #BBN (@rarerookies) October 24, 2025

Pope has called Johnson a “dangerous, dangerous, dangerous scorer” from the minute he signed with Kentucky, but to be this far along not even an official game into his career? Goodness.

Defense was excellent against the nation’s best offense

Bart Torvik, Evan Miya and KenPom all list Purdue as the best offense in college basketball entering 2025-26. Kentucky did not let the Boilermakers look the part, living up to the hype on the defensive end of the floor as a potential top-10 unit this season. The Wildcats made them uncomfortable and forced bad shots thanks to the length, athleticism and physicality Pope’s first team simply didn’t have in Lexington. And maybe most of all, they executed a game plan to limit Smith as a playmaker with just five assists while forcing two turnovers and holding the top-ranked foe to just 1.000 points per possession as a team.

They wore the Boilermakers down by coming in waves, able to land body blow after body blow until they had nothing left to give in the second half. Not many teams will be able to do that to them this year, but again, not many teams are built like Kentucky. The pieces are all there for the Wildcats to be special defensively.

A dominant effort on the glass

This lines up with the defensive success, obviously, but it’s hard to stress just how impressive Kentucky was on the glass against a team that, on paper, should be better in that area. Kaufman-Renn is elite in that area, especially on the offensive glass. The same can be said for Oscar Cluff — two guys who wake up with double-doubles every morning. They combined for 10 total boards with no player earning more than five on the team.

Meanwhile, the Wildcats were a plus-12 in that area with seven guys earning three or more rebounds and three with at least five, led by Mo Dioubate with nine. Ten offensive boards led to 14 second-chance points while the Boilermakers turned seven offensive boards into four second-chance points.

Factor in 7’4″ Daniel Jacobsen and Purdue have some big-time rebounding potential. Kentucky crushed them from top to bottom with guards, wings and bigs all coming up with balls.

Happy birthday, Malachi Moreno!

Jasper Johnson led the Wildcats in scoring, but his fellow in-state freshman made quite the impact himself — and on his 19th birthday, no less. Malachi Moreno finished with eight points on 4-5 shooting with four rebounds, one assist, one block and one steal in 22 minutes.

The opposing coach couldn’t stop talking about him after the game.

“I just promise you, he’s got a lot of substance, he’s a good kid, he’s long, he wants to be a player. Just too many good qualities,” Matt Painter said. “When you have character and you have talent and you’re 7-1, just keep working with them, man. They’re gonna be great.”

His own coach felt the same way.

“He’s just made incredible progress and that’s a real tribute to his family and himself, but he’s got a chance to grow into a really special player,” Mark Pope added.

Not bad for his first time ever rocking Kentucky blue in a live game. Quite the birthday present for the big 19-year-old.

Otega Oweh knocks off the rust

The SEC Preseason Player of the Year finished with the third-fewest total minutes among active players on Friday (17), ahead of only Kam Williams (16) and Collin Chandler (16). Oweh scored eight early in the first half on 3-5 shooting, then finished with two on 1-4 overall in the second half, combining for 10 points with three rebounds, one assist and one steal with one turnover.

He hit a big three to give Kentucky its first lead of the game, then followed it up seconds later with a layup, picking up right where he left off last year. There were other times, though, he was pressing in hopes of recreating that magic of his debut season as a Wildcat, just trying to get comfortable coming back from turf toe, that injury keeping him out since late summer.

Don’t discount his work at point guard and how much that impacted his play, either. He brought the ball up and initiated the offense, just Pope said he wanted to, with Lowe out. Sometimes Kentucky’s best offense a year ago was the head coach getting Oweh the ball and getting the heck out of the way — it worked just fine against Oklahoma — so it shouldn’t surprise you he looked okay in that role.

The Andrija Jelavic experience is much different than Big Z

I was the president of the Big Z fan club when Zvonimir Ivisic was in Lexington. He was a big goofball with a ton of talent, whether he knew he had it yet or not. When he produced, it felt like an accident at times, just figuring life out as a college basketball player — all potential with no consistency.

The Croatian Sensation 2.0 experience is much, much different. He only scored three points with no buckets, but Andrija Jelavic looked more comfortable against the No. 1 team in the country than Ivisic ever really did in the blue and white. He defended all over the floor, even holding his own against Braden Smith on a few switches, while also finishing tied for second on the team with five rebounds to go with two assists in 20 minutes. Pope joked before that he was the only player on the team not allowed to dribble the ball, but that’s clearly not the case, Jelavic bringing it up and attacking on multiple occasions.

We saw him make the Big Blue Madness 3-Point Contest championship round and hit shots in the Blue-White Game, but in our first real look at live reps, the 21-year-old sophomore showed serious promise.

Do not apologize for celebrating this win

Yes, it’s just an exhibition game and the win doesn’t count for anything beyond bragging rights. Yes, you can still celebrate the performance and outperforming expectations while being severely shorthanded.

Matt Painter said it best after the 13-point loss.

“They walked us, and look at the guys that we played. Our top three guys from last year played 28, 31, and 32 (minutes). And (Denzel) Aberdeen is the only one that has high minutes because they have to, because they don’t have Lowe. So this could have been worse. They could have played those guys. (Pope) was trying to get a lot of people in there. But that’s the thing about being in a great program like Kentucky. Next guy up.”

Both teams fought and competed for 40 minutes, but Kentucky was just better. Pope’s squad was better prepared and played to win, just as the head coach promised earlier in the week. Some Purdue fans teased BBN for this being the Wildcats’ Super Bowl, but the reality is that these guys want to win at everything they do — and they’re certainly going to take the No. 1 team in the country coming to town.

“At the end of the day, these guys are hungry to win,” Pope said before the game. “Every time that — if we were playing checkers right now, there would be some uproar about who was winning and how they were winning and what they were doing as a competitive group.”

These Cats are good, Final Four good. Don’t apologize for enjoying that. It’s been a minute since we’ve felt this way watching a Kentucky team, so have fun with it. Hopefully there are 41 more just like it with one more exhibition matchup and 40 official games through Indianapolis.