Photo by UK Athletics
Kentucky struggled to land the kill shot, but was still able to limp out of Memorial Gymnasium with an 82-78 win over Vanderbilt.
The Wildcats led no less than 17 in the first half after an explosive start by BJ Boston. The Freshman Guard had eight early runs when UK opened the game with a run of 10-0. Despite the early success, the inevitable scoring drought re-emerged, allowing Vandy to climb back into the game.
Starting after 10 minutes, UK went five minutes without scoring. The Cats hit some belated buckets to get a pillow that wouldn’t last. Vanderbilt led off the bottom on an 11-2 run to get in one run. Dylan Disu, the best player on the field Wednesday night who led all the goalscorers with 29 points and 16 rebounds, brought the game right at 13:54.
After Kentucky’s brightest star of the first 25 minutes, Isaiah Jackson, was sidelined by dirty troubles, two unlikely heroes emerged for Kentucky: Olivier Sarr and Jacob Toppin.
Previously, Sarr scored a six-point flurry in just over two minutes to give UK some breathing room. Then Toppin came into play and did a little bit of everything for the Cats, knocking down threes, taking shots from the middle and finishing ‘and ones’. Toppin finished the evening with 16 points, while Sarr added 10 points and four blocked shots. Jackson was one rebound away from a second double doubles in a row, despite not scoring in the second half. The Wildcats won the charity stripe game, making 24 of the 25 free throws.
Vanderbilt had one last run in the tank. Despite another big late three from Davion Mintz, the Commodores were able to cut the backlog to one thanks to Disu’s heroism. Keion Brooks put an opponent on a poster, but a terrible charge call erased the dagger, it would have been the play of the year. It was a block / charge call so disgusting you’d never want to watch college basketball again.
As irritating as the last two minutes were to watch, Kentucky escaped Vanderbilt with a major win. The Wildcats have a winning streak when they need it most, right before the SEC tournament.