With shots not falling, Kentucky's defense stepped up in win over Indiana

Kentucky’s 72-60 win over Indiana did not feature pretty offense — from either team.

By the time the clock hit all zeros and the Wildcats picked up their first win against a Power 4 opponent this season, the shooting numbers told the story of a rock fight. Kentucky shot 37.9 percent from the field as a team with a 3-15 mark from three-point range. Indiana wasn’t any better: 34.1 percent from the field and 4-24 from deep. There were 42 combined fouls called in this game. Kentucky shot 38 free throws, making 25 (65.8 percent), while Indiana shot 29 to make 26 (89.7 percent).

This game marked the fewest points scored by Kentucky in a win during the Mark Pope era. It was also the worst shooting percentage in a win.

Nothing about either team’s performance screamed beautiful basketball. What we got instead was physical basketball, and that might have been more entertaining at least on this Saturday night in Lexington. It showed that they care enough to fight for 40 full minutes, something that wasn’t clear through the first 10 games of the season.

“This Indiana team just scored 113 points against a really good Penn State team,” Pope said postgame. “They are a potent offensive force.”

Coming into the matchup with Kentucky, Indiana had scored 86 or more points in six of its 10 games played. As Pope mentioned, the Hoosiers dropped 113 points on Penn State just a few days ago. Lamar Wilkerson was the talk of college basketball after his 44-point performance against the Nittany Lions featured a program-record 10 three-pointers. Wilkerson finished with 15 points on 5-11 shooting against the ‘Cats, with only three of those points coming after halftime as he was plagued with foul trouble — a reflection of Kentucky’s willingness and desire to attack and get into the paint.

But it wasn’t just Wilkerson who struggled. Indiana’s second-leading scorer, Tucker DeVries, shot 4-13 from the field and 1-9 from deep to reach his 15 points before fouling out. Tayton Conerway added 11 points for IU, but only three other Hoosiers scored on the night. Indiana shot 27.3 percent from the field (and 1-10 from beyond the arc) in the second half, resulting in just 21 points.

Fueled by improved effort all-around, specifically from Mo Dioubate in his first game back since Nov. 18, Kentucky was able to make life hell for Indiana’s offense. Sure, there was shooting luck mixed in there, but there’s no luck in forcing 18 turnovers, the most miscues all season for Indiana. UK came away with a season-high 13 steals, which helped translate into 23 points off turnovers for the ‘Cats. Dioubate finished with five steals, Malachi Moreno added four steals and two blocks, while Otega Oweh swiped a couple of steals, as well.

With shots not falling as they hoped, Kentucky players found other ways to generate scoring opportunites.

“These guys just had to go self-create the energy in the defensive end,” Pope said.

Kentucky is now 15-0 under Pope when holding opponents to 66 or fewer points, including a 6-0 mark so far this season. UK is also 6-0 this season when the oppossing team shots 40 percent or less from the field. The offense is clearly still a work in progress, but Saturday night showed the defense is a step ahead. There was the sense of an indentity.

And it all happened without Jayden Quaintance, a Defensive Player of the Year caliber talent, roaming the floor — that’s coming soon, though.

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