Kentucky basketball fell short against Alabama once again on Saturday in another high-scoring affair. Despite a strong start by Mark Pope and the Wildcats, the Crimson Tide rallied back late in the first half and ran away with the game in a 96-83 win in Tuscaloosa.
Kentucky is still fighting an uphill battle while they try to survive without both of its point guards, Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson, who are both still out due to injury. In the absence of two of their best perimeter scorers, the Wildcats need star guard Otega Oweh to produce at a high level for them to keep pace with one of the best teams in college basketball.
While Oweh has met the moment for Kentucky time and time again this season, he was unable to do that on Saturday. Alabama shut down the physical guard, holding him to just two points for the game on 1-for-9 shooting. Oweh also fouled out of the game after playing just 22 minutes. After the game, Pope was in no mood to talk about his star’s struggles when asked what Alabama did to limit the Kentucky standout, via Aaron Gershon of 247 Sports.
“Are you baiting me into an answer here?” Pope questioned, per Gershon. “Alabama is a great defensive team.”
Oweh is Kentucky’s leading scorer, averaging nearly 16 points per game, so it’s understandably hard for the Wildcats to score when he doesn’t have it going. Kentucky had a difficult shooting night as a whole, finishing just under 43% from the field and making nine of their 26 3-point attempts.
With this latest loss, this Kentucky basketball team is seeing its hopes of a protected seed in the NCAA Tournament slowly start to slip away. The Wildcats are starting to show up on a lot of four-lines now, with little margin for error between them and some of the teams chasing them.
The strength of schedule in the SEC and Kentucky’s crop of very impressive wins will help, but Pope and company can’t afford too many more disappointing performances like this one over the rest of the season if they want to stay in that top 16.
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