No. 4 Kentucky men’s basketball (10-2) fell to Ohio State (8-4) in the CBS Sports Classic 85-65.
Coming off of an eight-point win over their in-state rivals, Louisville, the Cats took to the “world’s most famous arena,” Madison Square Garden, in New York City looking to up their win streak to four-straight games.
However, poor shooting and the lack of converting simple layups sucked the life out of the Cats and their chances.
In the “big apple”, UK shot a daunting 17-57 (29.8%) from the field and an inferior 4-22 (18.2%) from downtown on 22 attempted triples.
“We just never were able to find the pace of the game,” Kentucky Head Coach Mark Pope said. “Bruce Thornton really just controlled the entire game, the entire time, in every single facet of the game.”
Thornton, a junior guard, torched the Cats by destroying them with 30 points, four rebounds and three assists.
Heading into the matchup, Kentucky led the nation in points per game with 91.3, but against the Buckeyes, it secured 26.3 less points than its average.
With that, another really sore part of the game was that UK wasn’t able to convert the “simple” shots it took as it went 7-23 (30.4%) on attempted layups.
Otega Oweh, who came into the game leading the Cats in points per game (15.7), finished the night with a team-high 21 points while shooting 4-13 (30.8%) from the field and 0-1 from deep. 13 of Oweh’s points were tacked on at the free-throw line as he went a perfect 100% from the charity stripe.
That’s a positive, right?
Lamont Butler, who was coming off of a 33-point outing against the Cardinals, failed to put the team in a winning position once more as he only scored four points on 1-7 shooting from the field while blanking from deep as he went 0-3.
With the loss, the Cats now have a 5-6 record as participants of the CBS Sports Classic since it began back in 2014 while also letting the Buckeyes knot up the two programs’ all-time record against each other at 11-11.
“I know exactly how these guys will respond,” Pope said. “You know, they’re going to really, really, try hard to not let this destroy their couple days off.”
Kentucky was forced to sit with the loss with a 10-day break to get back to the gym and try and resurface its old form as it played the Brown Bears of the Ivy League on Dec. 31 in Rupp Arena.
