TyTy Washington broke a 3-point slump while defending Alabama into one

TyTy Washington returned to his double-figure scoring ways Saturday night in Kentucky’s win at Tuscaloosa. The star freshman had been in a scoring funk since his career-high 28 points against Tennessee, in part because of an ankle injury he suffered at Auburn. Washington followed games of 17, 15, and 28 points with games of 8, 4, 2, and 7, plus one game in street clothes while the ankle healed. When Kentucky’s plane touched down in Alabama for the weekend, he hadn’t made a 3-pointer in four games. Eight straight attempts without a make.

But at Alabama, Washington matched up against one of the SEC’s highest-scoring backcourts and outscored everyone on the floor in a roadkill win. His game-high 15 points carried the Wildcats offensively and his 3-pointer in the second half snapped his cold shooting streak that had extended to 11 misses beyond the arc.

To his one 3-pointer in the game, Washington said, “Once I saw that one go through, I’m not going to say I was too happy, but I was just excited because it’s been a minute since I actually hit a 3.”

Washington’s coaches and teammates kept encouraging him to shoot his way out of the drought, he added in his postgame remarks. “Calipari kept telling me to be aggressive and one would fall and it just happened to fall and we needed it,” he said. “I was just happy.”

While happy for his first made 3-pointer in three weeks, Washington should be happiest for Kentucky’s 3-point defense. He and his teammates were great in their containment of Alabama’s Jaden Shackelford and Jahvon Quinerly, a couple of top-10 scorers in the league who combine for 33 points per game. Shackelford and Quinerly were held way below their averages with six and seven points apiece and no made 3-pointers between them. It was Alabama’s worst shooting performance of the season.

“We had to run them off the 3-point line,” Washington explained afterward when asked how Kentucky held the SEC’s second-highest scoring team to only 55 points. “We know they like to shoot a lot of 3s, so us running them off the 3-point line and making them take tough 2s, we knew we could do that and rebound the ball and we’d be fine.”

As for moving forward as a team, Washington said, “Ever since that Kansas game, our preparation and stuff, we’ve just been dialed in and locked in. We just know at the end of the day, we have to come out and give everybody our best fight because at the end of the day, they’re going to come out trying to go crazy because who they’re playing against.”

Hear more from TyTy Washington on his comeback performance, more roadkill, and Daimion Collins’ breakout night.