LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ/AV) — Oscar Tsbiebwe seemingly hasn’t been distracted by his candidacy for National Player of the Year honors, considering the Kentucky standout continues to go about his business on the court.
Tshiebwe scored 27 points and had 19 rebounds to lead No. 5 Kentucky to a 78-57 win over Florida on Saturday.
“He’s been a beast,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said, “… this is high-level basketball here. This isn’t eighth-grade.”
Tshiebwe stood out above the Gators and collected a nation-leading 18th double-double of the season and his 11th in a row. The Wildcats (21-4, 10-2 Southeastern Conference) have won six straight.
Tshiebwe promised a young fan Friday that he would attempt to grab 20 rebounds, which provided extra inspiration.
“That’s why I came in today with a different mindset to rebound for her,” he said. “… I think she’ll be more than happy for 19 rebounds.”
TyTy Washington had 10 points for Kentucky, including eight in the second half, before leaving the game with 12:51 remaining with a lower left leg injury. He didn’t return. Calipari said an X-ray was negative, adding the freshman guard is “day-to-day.”
“He still might be out a week or two,” Calipari said. “It could be a muscle, it could be something that separated.”
Kellan Grady had 15 points and Davion Mintz added 11 for the Wildcats.
The Gators (16-9, 6-6) saw their four-game winning streak snapped. Colin Castelton led Florida with 18 points, while Myreon Jones, who made seven 3-pointers in a win over Georgia on Tuesday, finished with just six points.
Kentucky made their first four field goals, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Grady and used a 14-2 to produce a 20-6 lead. Grady scored all nine of his first-half points during the spurt, which included 12 unanswered by the Wildcats.
Despite the sluggish start, the Gators used a 15-2 run of their own to narrow the margin to 22-21 with six minutes remaining in the first half. Kentucky regrouped and responded with six straight points — all by Tshiebwe — and led 33-28 at the half.
The Wildcats put the game away by scoring 13 of the first 15 points to open the second half.
“This is a tough place to play and there was a lot of energy,” Florida coach Mike White said. “When the second half starts the same way, it can be disheartening. We have to be tougher mentally … we’ve got to be better than that and then go on to the next play.”
SHORT-HANDED
Kentucky was without forward Jacob Toppin, who suffered a sprained ankle in the first half of Kentucky’s win at South Carolina on Tuesday. The Wildcats have played just 12 games this season with a full roster. One of Kentucky’s key players off the bench, Toppin is averaging six points and four rebounds per game.
BIG PICTURE
Florida: The Gators fell 5-15 against teams ranked in the top 10. Seeking much-needed momentum going into the postseason, Florida’s next three games are against Texas A&M, No. 1 Auburn and surging Arkansas.
Kentucky: The Wildcats continue to build their case for a top seed in the NCAA Tournament and could make a jump in the Top 25 following losses by No. 1 Auburn and third-ranked Purdue this week. The schedule doesn’t get easier for Kentucky, which closes out February at Tennessee, followed by home games against Alabama and LSU and a road game at Arkansas. … The Wildcats were outrebounded in their previous three games, but held a 41-25 edge over the Gators.
UP NEXT
Florida: At Texas A&M on Tuesday.
Kentucky: At No. 19 Tennessee on Tuesday.
RUPP ARENA at CENTRAL BANK CENTER | LEXINGTON, KY
FEB. 12, 2022
ATTENDANCE: 20,383 – season high
Final Score: No. 5/4 Kentucky 78, Florida 57
Team Records, Series Notes, Etc.
- Kentucky is now 21-4 on the season and has won six in a row. UK is 10-2 in the Southeastern Conference.
- Florida ended a four-game win streak and is 16-9 overall, 6-6 in the SEC.
- UK leads the series, 106-41, and the teams have another meeting March 5 in Gainesville.
- UK leads 54-11 in games played in Lexington.
- Next for UK: the Wildcats are at Tennessee on Tuesday for the 9 p.m. game on ESPN.
Team Notes
- Kentucky has won 16 in a row in Rupp Arena, including 15-0 this season.
- Kentucky limited Florida to 57 points. UK is 201-9 (95.7%) under Calipari when keeping the opponent to 63 points or less, including 13-0 this season.
- Kentucky tied a season low for turnovers with only five miscues. UK turned a 10-5 difference in turnovers into a 17-4 advantage in points off turnovers.
- Kentucky dominated the rebounding 41-25, collecting 18 offensive boards that led to a 20-7 gap in second-chance points.
- The +16 margin ties the largest margin this season against an SEC opponent.
- Kentucky’s largest lead was the final margin. UK is 306-13 (95.9%) under Calipari when leading by at least 10 points at any time in the contest.
Player Notes
- Oscar Tshiebwe totaled 27 points and 19 rebounds.
- It is his seventh-straight double-double, first Wildcat to do that since Julius Randle in 2013.
- It is his 19th double-double of the season, ranking second in the nation in that category.
- It is his team-leading eighth 20-point game of the season and fifth game with at least 20 points and 15 rebounds.
- He’s the first UK player to achieve the feat since Kenny Walker had five such games in 1984-85.
- According to the SEC Network, Tshiebwe is the only SEC player to have five 20-point, 15-rebound games in the last 25 years.
- The nation’s leading rebounder has grabbed double-figure boards in all but two games this season.
- He has 12 straight games with double-figure rebounds, first Wildcat to do so since Dan Issel had 12 in a row in the 1969-70 season.
- Issel and Tshiebwe now have the longest streaks in program history dating back to the 1967-68 season with complete game-by-game rebounding records
- It is the longest streak of any SEC player since at least 1996-97
- He added two assists and three steals. He has had at least two steals in nine straight games.
- Kellan Grady tallied 15 points, primarily on the strength of four 3-pointers.
- Over the last 16 games he is averaging 13.8 points per game while shooting 5 percent (55 of 121) from 3-point range.
- Has made a 3-pointer in 18 straight games, most since Jamal Murray made a 3 in all 36 games of the 2015-16 season.
- Grady has made at least two 3-pointers in seven straight games.
- Playing 39 minutes today, he has led the team in minutes played in the last eight games.
- TyTy Washington Jr. assembled 10 points, five rebounds and six assists.
- He has averaged 14.2 points in the 20 wins in which he has played this season, vs. 6.0 points per game in UK’s four losses.
- He left the game in the second half with a lower-left leg injury and did not return.
- Making three 3-pointers, Davion Mintz notched 11 points.
- Over the last four games, he has averaged 12.3 points and made 11 of 22 from long range.
- Sahvir Wheeler, the SEC leader in assists, had six tonight while adding nine points.
- He has had 18 games this season with at least six assists.
- After going 0-for-17 from the field in the previous three games, he rattled home a 3-pointer on his first try today and made 4 of 7 shots for the game.
- Lance Ware continued to provide quality production off the bench. He had four points and a season-high seven rebounds in 14 minutes today.
Coach John Calipari
- Calipari is now 360-97 at UK.
- UK is 294-56 against unranked competition under Calipari.
- Calipari has an 805-237 all-time on-court record.
- He moved into tie for 13th place on the all-time on-courts win list matching Rick Byrd’s total
- Calipari has tallied a 377-118 all-time record within conference play as a head coach and owns a 169-52 record since joining the SEC.
- Calipari is 21-9 against Florida.
In the First Half
- The starting lineup was Sahvir Wheeler, TyTy Washington Jr., Kellan Grady, Keion Brooks Jr. and Oscar Tshiebwe for the 21st time this season. That lineup now has a 17-4 record.
- Davion Mintz was the first Kentucky substitution at the 13:32 mark, fifth time this season that he has been first off of the bench.
- Ahead 8-6, UK went on a 12-0 run for a 20-6 lead, coaxing Florida’s second timeout at 14:25.
- However, UK went on an eight-minute cold spell and Florida’s 15-2 spurt cut it to 22-21 at 6:43.
- UK steadied with an eight-point string, highlighted by two layups and a dunk by Tshiebwe, to make it 30-24.
- With Tshiebwe totaling 13 points and nine rebounds, UK went to halftime ahead 33-28.
- Key stats of the first half:
- UK made 8 of its first 10 shots of the half but only six of the last 24.
- UK had only three turnovers and led points off turnovers 9-0.
- UK is 20-2 this season when leading at intermission.
In the Second Half
- Kentucky began the second half with the starting lineup.
- With Washington getting eight points and an assist, Kentucky opened with a 13-2 run in the first 3:36, giving the Wildcats their largest lead at 46-30.
- However, as they did in the first half, the Gators quickly rallied with a 12-4 run, pulling within 50-42, and UK called timeout at 13:21.
- And again, as it happened in the first half, Kentucky steadied with six straight points by Tshiebwe to re-establish the double-digit advantage.
- With Florida hovering within 65-55 with 4:47 left, UK put the game away with a 7-0 run.
- Tshiebwe again played a dominant half with 14 points and 10 rebounds in the final stanza.
Kentucky 78, Florida 57
Q. The play with Tyty (Washington)’s lower leg and also the one in the second half with Lance (Ware) and the Florida guy went down, how did you see those two plays?
JOHN CALIPARI: I didn’t. I’ll watch them on tape. When I see them on tape, I’ll comment to the league about them. If I think they were obvious, they’ve got to explain why they weren’t called.
Q. I wonder too, late in the first half you kind of went big with Oscar (Tshiebwe) and Lance together. How much do you think that maybe changed the tone of the game?
JOHN CALIPARI: No, it did change the tone. Lance was the reason we had a gap. You know, and I said after, he’s building his own confidence. He knows what he is. He’s not listening to people tell him eighth grade basketball scoring. He’s not listening to that.
He’s doing what he has to, and he protected Keion (Brooks Jr.). Keion didn’t play great today. Keion has played out of his mind. Well, he struggled. He’s not a machine, he’s not a computer. It’s not video games. Lance went in and covered for him.
I gave Bryce (Hopkins) a little bit of a run, but when I put Lance in, Lance just made the statement loud and clear, you’d better keep playing me. So, that’s the only reason I didn’t play Bryce more is how well Lance played.
But then Oscar does what he does, and I thought that Sahvir (Wheeler) ran a great game, just ran us in the second half. It was great.
One point, one of the other players — we broke a huddle, and I think it was Kellan (Grady) said to him, ‘listen, don’t foul, because with you in the game, we’re different. You make us run, so don’t foul.’ And it’s true. Like you could say it was just Lance, but he was out with two fouls and they were both fouls. He fouled both times.
Q. I was going to ask about Lance. I wonder if every team needs a Lance, what he brings beyond the box score.
JOHN CALIPARI: You know what I told him after, what’s great, that shows you it’s not eighth grade basketball, he shot an airball from the free-throw line, and you know what the fans were doing? ‘We want Lance, we want Lance.’ It just tells you if you’ll fight and complete and not be timid, just play aggressively, everybody loves it.
It’s like I kept telling Sahvir, Sahvir, you have an impact on the game when you don’t score, but it kills you when you don’t. The minute you don’t care about scoring, you’re going to score, which he did today.
You know, it’s interesting what we’re seeing, Davion (Mintz) stepping in, doing what he’s doing. We had timeouts and played a lot of people in the first half. In the second half, you’re trying to win the game. Again, the fans are loving on these guys, and that’s why I keep coming back to.
You’re talking down on the kids or the program. When you’re talking down, you’re yelling too much, or what about this, what about that, but I don’t get it. But that’s why I say we’ve got the greatest fans who, when they recognize that stuff, no eyeballs or no ears from me. No eyeballs or no ears from our true fans, the Big Blue Nation.
These kids — how about today, and I didn’t know until this morning, that we were going to have four people from Mayfield come in. How about that? The team was like touched by it. Like they remember — I said, where were we when it happened? We were at Notre Dame, Coach, and we went to the Grotto and we were praying — I said, you prayed for four of these guys, and you know what, one of them was in the candle factory.
I come back to, please, everyone, do not forget about west Kentucky. We should be able to do this and do this rather quickly because we’re not talking 400,000 people affected. It’s a small number. Talking when we were up there to different legislators and the governor, I mean, they’re on it. We’ve just got to keep moving.
Q. I don’t mean to belabor the point, but on Tyty, it sounds like when you say you were laughing back there and the day-to-day, you’re feeling pretty good that it’s not a major —
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, there was an X-ray, so — you know, yeah, so if that were — it looked like there’s something there, I’d be like, wow.
Now, he still may be out a week or two, who knows. Could be a muscle, it could be something that separated, because he got hit hard. It’s kind of like the guy that bum-rushed our huddle. I mean, the game, it is — but you know what was great, the other players at Florida came right up to me and said, Coach, we’re all good. I said, thank you, we are, too. Our team huddled and said, we’re not buying into that. We’re not. That’s not who we are. We’re worried about winning the game.
So probably it was good that it happened. Not that he got hurt but good that that kind of scrum and then our response to it. Like Lance responded great. He just laughed.
Q. It seemed like in the second half you just kind of kept feeding it to Oscar and letting him do his thing. Is it hard to come up with different ways to describe how good he’s been for you?
JOHN CALIPARI: He’s been a beast. The only thing, it’s kind of like Sahvir, where when he focuses on one area, Oscar’s thing, he started to get where he’s trying to score. Like how does a kid make 85 shots in five minutes and then miss them in the game or miss free throws when he’ll make 15, 18 in a row? Then it becomes you’re trying to add points in your head, and you know how I know that affects it? Because I did that. Oh, yeah, you’re counting points. I know what I had, and if I make these two, and then if I make — well, then you don’t make them. You’ve got to look at the stat sheet when the game is over.
So with him, just play, man. Just play.
Q. I was wondering, with Oscar, does he ever have a bad day? Do you ever have to tell him about anything?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, the people that are close to him said there were — at a point in time that the kid was down and this, that and the other, but since he’s been here, this kid got a smile on his face. He’s starting — like he’s a funny kid. When he doesn’t want to concentrate or he doesn’t have the mental discipline, he just — well, I don’t understand the language. It’s all BS. He understands everything. And if you watch him now, he doesn’t break down on plays — he knows what he’s doing unless he becomes mentally undisciplined and he starts to roam with his mind.
Like I said, I told him after, this is high-level basketball here. This isn’t eighth grade. You can’t be listening to eighth grade coaches telling you you’ve got to get points. Just what’s your role on this team, I’m going to do it, and the biggest thing I’m going to do is fight and battle and compete and talk and do what I’m supposed to for this team. And then the team is going to do some stuff for me that gives me easy baskets.
Q. Is Kellan Grady one of the better shooters you’ve had, and what does having him do for the offense?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, he had some — going back, Doron Lamb was a really — like he’d go get 25 in a minute if you left him open, and I’ve had Devin Booker, he’s not too bad. But we also had Aaron Harrison, who would knock down shots. I’m leaving guys out, Malik Monk. Come on, we’ve had a bunch here.
But what I like is I had to take him out because he missed four in a row. I had to. But his job was to keep shooting.
At the end of the half, I got upset because Tyty was open in the corner and Oscar was open and he shot two balls. What are you doing? And then they got a layup. Well, you told me to shoot it. Not if guys are wide open.
Then he made his last shot, because I mentioned after the game, couldn’t make a shot, and then somebody said, well, you know, he made four. He made three to start the game. I said, oh, I forgot, and they all laughed.
Q. I wonder with Tyty, hopefully not serious, as you say, but you’ve had several guys get hurt. Are you starting to feel star crossed at all? What’s going on?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, I talked to the guys after. You guys know my — and I’ve talked about this, fresh minds and fresh legs at the end of the year, that’s the most important thing. We went in this practice, we had a couple pro scouts come in, and I said, look, I’m going to go 5-on-5 for about 10 minutes, and that will be about it. I told the players before, the guys that need that are Bryce and Daimion (Collins). They need us to scrimmage some.
The problem is we’ve got guys that are in wars every time they play, and they don’t need to be scrimmaging with 21 days left in the regular season.
So we did a 5-on-5 block out drill. The third time up and down the floor, Oscar went down and grabbed his leg, and I went, what? And he ended up shaking it off and he was okay. What do you think I did? We went 5-on-0, here we go.
So you can’t — our whole thing is being really focused, being fresh and ready to go, talking, accepting roles. Some guys are going to play better some days, some guys won’t play as well some days. They’re not machines. They’re not robots. But we’ve got enough guys that can come in and do their thing.
Q. Kind of along those lines, I would think there’s just a mental hurdle that you guys get over when you see a guy who’s important to you, a teammate, go down the way Tyty did and it didn’t look good in the moment. It’s happened to you guys a few times. Are you happy with the way this team seems to be able to shake that off and keep going?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, and then if it was one more guy like it was at LSU and the way it was at Auburn, it makes it way harder. You know what I’m saying? We need those guys. But one, we can kind of cover for. We covered for Sahvir, we covered for Tyty. You can do it, but you can’t cover for both of them.
Q. You always talk about everything points to March. All the things that have happened this year, the injuries, the games you’ve faced on the road, is that all in the long run really good preparation for when March gets here?
JOHN CALIPARI: What defense did Florida play today? Were you watching the game? They played a three-two zone, which we haven’t faced all year. Thank goodness we faced it, and I think our guys were confident in what we were doing, and they looked confident.
Q. I’m sure this doesn’t necessarily matter to you that much, but in the National Player of the Year race you guys have officially launched Oscar’s campaign with stuff like today. Are you all in on that, that he’s the most impactful player in the country?
JOHN CALIPARI: I would say, but there may be some bias. Plays at Kentucky, no way. I’ll vote for a yellow — what do they call those, blue dogs? Yellow dogs? Before I’d vote for that. He may get some of that.
But the reality of it is if you watch and you see who he is, you’ve got to love the kid. He plays so hard. He never says a word about the officials. He smiles. He went to a grade school and was working with some kids from the Congo. They said it was like ridiculous what it did for the kids and for him. He plays his heart out. He doesn’t play great every night out, but he impacts every game.
So, I would say there may be a couple players that are having more of an impact on games than him, but I’d have to see them, and I’d have to say over the long haul, he’s doing things that haven’t been done for 45 years. Yeah, but he’s at Kentucky. I know. I get it.
We’ve had the Player of the Year here — have we had a couple of those, I think? Two? So, we’ll see.
He’s just got to finish. I told him, I’m trying to get him to stop worrying about offense so he’ll score. Stop worrying about missing a shot and a free throw, stop worrying about missing one-footers. If you get 15 rebounds a game the rest of the way, you’re going to be Player of the Year anyway, and if you stop worrying about offense, you’ll score more. Wow, isn’t it funny how that works?
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