Kentucky basketball embarrassed by Vanderbilt on the road 80-55 – Sports Illustrated

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The Kentucky Wildcats hit the road on Tuesday looking to keep their winning streak alive, stretching it to six games facing the #18 Vanderbilt Commodores in a game that was set up to be a huge opportunity for not only resume purposes, but SEC standings as well, as the Wildcats entered in a three-way tie for second-place in the conference. They were not ready for the opportunity to say the least, as they were dominated 80-55 in embarrassing fashion by Vanderbilt.
It started out as bad as it could have, as the trend of bad first halves reared its ugly head. Kentucky found themselves quickly in a hole, with just 10 points in 12 minutes and went from down 13 to 22 in a span of three minutes. The first half couldn't have been any uglier, as the Wildcats finished just 9-32 for the entire half and were very sloppy as well. Vandy had 15 pts off seven Kentucky turnovers, while they had just six points off of 7 for the Commodores. It was Vandy's largest halftime lead vs Kentucky since 2008. As for the second half, Kentucky used an 8-2 run to cut the Vanderbilt lead to 17, but the Commodores continued to answer every time it looked like the Wildcats may be starting to find any sort of momentum.
This was a team that was not like LSU or Tennessee, who the Wildcats successfully came back against. It was a Vanderbilt team that not only takes care of the ball well, but is very fast and efficient. Whenever Kentucky did anything well, the Commodores were always there to answer it with a bucket of their own. It got to a point where Vanderbilt just continued attacking the basket in hopes of getting fouled and it worked. The Commodores came in as the best free-throw shooting team in the SEC and they took advantage, going 16-19 from the line in the second half. A 7-0 run blew Vanderbilt's lead open to 59-33 with 10:55 left and they really never looked back, going up as much as 28 points from then on, leaving Memorial Gym with their largest win over Kentucky since 2008.
Kentucky has been without Jayden Quaintance for their entire winning streak, as well as Jaland Lowe, who was declared out for the season, but last week against Texas, they lost Kam Williams to a broken foot for an indefinite amount of time, who has been such a vital part of the offensive spacing, and that lack of depth started to show Tuesday night. Kentucky just didn't get contributions from a few players, it was the bulk of the team. In a game where you need your best players to show up, they never did for Kentucky and those who did were not efficient at all. The Wildcats shot 32 percent overall and 6-24 from three on the night, as well as committing 15 turnovers in which Vanderbilt had 28 points off. But, Vanderbilt was without their second-leading scorer and best defensive guard, Duke Miles, yet still easily left with a win.
Mark Pope was hoping his team would continue to work their second-half magic like they have multiple times this season, but they ran into a team that it would be hard to do that exact thing against. Vanderbilt is an offensive juggernaut, and Kentucky was forced to play catch-up against them and to no success, as the Commodores responded every single time it felt like. This is now the fourth game that the Wildcats were completely embarrassed in and by now, fans are not surprised. BBN can add this stat as insult to injury, too.
University of Kentucky Basketball and Football beat writer.
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