Heading down to Knoxville for a top-tier SEC showdown with No. 8 Tennessee, No. 12 Kentucky had its back against the wall.
Coming off of back-to-back losses for the first time this season, facing a hostile crowd and dealing with injuries, UK was already at a disadvantage.
Kerr Kriisa, who has been sidelined with a broken foot that he suffered at Gonzaga, wouldn’t be able to provide a spark off the bench, fifth-year senior guard Lamont Butler, who was out with a shoulder injury, wouldn’t be able to lock up Tennessee’s Zakai Zeigler and provide much needed points while forward Andrew Carr, who played just one minute, would be dealing with back issues and be limited.
With the odds not in their favor, the Cats still managed to pull out a 78-73 quad-one win, their seventh this season and the second most in the SEC behind Auburn, which has 11.
With crucial players being banged up, it was well known that everybody in blue would have to do their part and play a sizable role, and they did just that.
Fifth-year senior Koby Brea, who started in just his second game this season, peppered the Vols with a team-high 18 points, shooting a perfect 5-5 from the field and 3-3 from deep. Brea also played hard-nosed defense, compiling one block and one steal.
“Man, he makes some hard shots, doesn’t he?” Head Coach Mark Pope said. “It’s interesting, with these really special, gifted shooters… Someone asked me about Koby, that he hadn’t made a ton of shots in the past few games. We hadn’t spent zero seconds thinking about it.”
Before the tilt with Tennessee, Brea went through a bit of a down stretch, scoring just six points at Georgia, three points at Mississippi State and five points against Texas A&M before reaching 10 against Alabama, and, after that game, Brea put up another sorrowful stat-line, scoring just three points at Vanderbilt.
Fifth-year senior guard Jaxson Robinson had a pleasant night as well, finishing the game with 17 points on 6-16 shooting from the field and 4-9 shooting from downtown.
Robinson has now gone five straight games where he’s scored at least ten points, with the last under-ten-point performance coming on Jan. 7 at Georgia.
While Kentucky’s staff was being cautious with Carr’s injury, senior forward Ansley Almonor started in his second-straight game and, with that, tied a season-high 12 points while getting two boards and supplying three assists.
Almonor ripped off seven field goals, all of which were 3-pointers and went 4-7, good for 57.1%.
The former Knight has now scored ten-plus points in four out of the last five games, something any coach would be happy to see from a normally designated bench player.
Kentucky now has to shift its focus to Feb. 1, when it will be hosting former long-tenured head coach John Calipari and his Arkansas Razorbacks. Returning to Rupp Arena with Calipari are former Cats D.J. Wager, Adou Thiero, Zvonimir Ivisic and Kareem Watkins, all which were on UK’s roster last season.
This historic matchup is set to take place at 9 p.m. ET and can be viewed on ESPN.