National Basketball Association
Kentucky 92, Louisiana State 85
When: 7:00 PM ET, Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Where: Rupp Arena, Lexington, Kentucky
Officials:
# Olandis Poole, # Jamie Luckie, # Jeff Clark
Attendance:
23657
By The Sports Xchange
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- No. 15 Kentucky put four players in double figures in a 92-85 victory over LSU on Tuesday night at Rupp Arena.
The win enabled Kentucky (19-5, 9-2 SEC) to begin the process of righting its ship after a tough stretch that saw a team ranked No. 1 earlier this season lose three of four games before defeating LSU (9-14, 1-10), which has lost 10 straight.
"The biggest thing for us is sharing the ball and creating easy opportunities," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "You take away the last eight minutes, there was some good stuff we did. That's the main thing that I'm focused on."
Freshman guard Malik Monk, the SEC's leading scorer, and freshman forward Wenyen Gabriel topped Kentucky with 23 points each. But the story was Gabriel, who exceeded his previous career best of 15 points.
The Wildcats also got 16 from De'Aaron Fox and 14 from Isaiah Briscoe.
Kentucky shot 49.2 percent from the field, hit 20 of 24 free throws and had 16 assists and 13 turnovers. The Wildcats won the rebounding battle 40-25.
"I know now and I feel comfortable we're on the right path," Calipari said. "Yesterday's practice was one of our best of the season. Not energy-wise, but what we look like as a team. Now we got to continue on that path and shore up the problems we're having defensively."
Sophomore guard Antonio Blakeney topped LSU with 31 points and sophomore guard Brandon Sampson added 17.
The Tigers shot 46.6 percent from the field but had 14 turnovers to 10 assists.
"I knew it would be an extremely tough game for us," LSU coach Johnny Jones said. "The setback Kentucky was coming off of, from Florida, we knew they would come in and be focused. That they were.
"I thought they played a really good first half of basketball. I thought our guys did a good job of remaining focused and continuing to battle to the bitter end. Unfortunately, we couldn't overcome the first-half deficit."
Kentucky blew out to an 18-4 lead thanks to 11 points from Gabriel and five LSU turnovers inside the first six minutes. Gabriel made four of his first five shots from the floor and had three of the Wildcats' eight rebounds.
LSU closed the gap to 26-19 before Monk hit back-to-back 3-pointers to push Kentucky out to an 11-point advantage at 32-21 with 5:24 left in the first half.
Kentucky closed the first half with a 7-0 run to make it 43-27 at intermission. LSU went the last 3:46 without a point.
Gabriel had 16 points in the first half, eclipsing a previous best of 15. Monk added 14 points, meaning the duo scored 30 of Kentucky's 43 points.
Blakeney topped LSU with nine points in the opening half. The Tigers were outrebounded 24-15 and had eight turnovers in the first 20 minutes.
After the lead grew to 21 points at 48-27 early in the second half, LSU mounted a mild comeback, outscoring Kentucky 10-0 to make it 48-37 with 15:56 left. The Wildcats went more than two minutes without scoring.
Kentucky eventually pushed back out to a 63-47 lead on eight straight points by Briscoe.
Kentucky went on to lead by as many as 25 points at 75-50 with 8:47 to play before coasting home. LSU outscored Kentucky 26-11 in the final minutes.
"Eight minutes to go, we reverted," Calipari said. "I don't know if we were tired or reverted back. Might have been a combination of both. If I could practice tonight, we would have gone three hours. I would have had them meet me at the gym at 10 o'clock and I would have gone three hours until 1 in the morning until people were puking. That's the old days. I can't do that.
"But we will practice three hours tomorrow. I told them, If anybody says they can't go, you won't make the trip to Alabama. We're going to get after this and continue to build what you saw for three quarters of the game."
NOTES: Kentucky's John Calipari needs one more victory for his 23rd consecutive 20-win season, more than any other active coach. ... Kentucky has now beaten LSU 44 of 49 times the game has been played in Lexington. ... Kentucky and LSU rank 12th and 13th in the SEC in terms of inexperienced players.
Top Game Performances
| Louisiana State |
|
Kentucky |
|
Antonio Blakeney 31 |
Scoring |
Wenyen Gabriel 23 |
|
Antonio Blakeney 5 |
Assists |
De'Aaron Fox 6 |
|
Skylar Mays 4 |
Rebounds |
Edrice Adebayo 9 |
|
Brandon Sampson 4 |
Free Throws Made |
Wenyen Gabriel 6 |
|
Jalyn Patterson 2 |
Steals |
De'Aaron Fox 3 |
|
Duop Reath 1 |
Blocks |
Edrice Adebayo 1 |
Team Stats Summary
| Team |
Points |
FG% |
3PM-3PA |
FTM-FTA |
Assists |
Rebounds |
Blocks |
Steals |
Turnovers |
| Louisiana State
|
85 |
50.0 |
10-23 |
11-15 |
13 |
23 |
1 |
6 |
14 |
| Kentucky
|
92 |
49.2 |
9-25 |
21-26 |
16 |
39 |
2 |
8 |
14 |
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