Kentucky erased a 17-point deficit, got a late swing from Colin Chandler, watched Otega Oweh miss a free throw in the final minute — and still won because Malachi Moreno stepped up on the final play.

Kentucky erased a 17-point deficit, got a late swing from Colin Chandler, watched Otega Oweh miss a free throw in the final minute — and still won because Malachi Moreno stepped up on the final play.

No, that’s not a typo. Kentucky men’s basketball has ended its last two games the exact same way.

At halftime, Kentucky was given less than a 10% chance to win both games. At one point, it was under 5%.

Against LSU, just 90 seconds into the second half, Kentucky’s win probability dropped to 4.5%. Against Tennessee, with 3:04 left in the first half, it fell to 3.8%.

Kentucky turned two games it had no business winning into two victories anyway.

On Wednesday, Jan. 14, the Wildcats traveled to Baton Rouge, La., for their fourth SEC game of the season.

It was an important one for the Cats, as they were coming off their first conference win of the year, defeating Mississippi State only a few days prior.

After dropping its first two SEC games this season, Kentucky was looking to continue its momentum after its dominant performance against the Bulldogs.

However, it would be no easy feat, as all season, the Wildcats had only won a single game on the road or at a neutral site, defeating No. 22 St. John’s in Atlanta back in December, but dropping the other four.

The opening minutes were some of the worst offense Kentucky has produced all season.

Kentucky didn’t score for the first four minutes before Andrija Jelavic got the Wildcats on the board with a free throw. A minute later, he hit a layup for Kentucky’s first field goal of the night.

Through the first 11 minutes of the game, Kentucky shot 5.6% from the field (1-of-18), and 0% from the three (0-of-6), and put only six points on the board, half of which came from free throws.

At halftime, the Cats had shot only 26.7% from the field, 16.7% from the three-point line, and 50% from the free throw line. Kentucky ended the half trailing 38-22, with six field goals and only two threes.

When LSU opened the second half with two free throws off a shooting foul, Kentucky found itself down by 18 – and a comeback, let alone a win, began to look way out of reach.

Only a minute later, Otega Oweh would make a free throw and begin what would turn into a 9-0, one-minute scoring run, with a bucket from Denzel Aberdeen and back-to-back threes from Jelavic and Kam Williams.

Kentucky’s offense kept rolling after its early second-half burst, repeatedly cutting LSU’s lead down to one possession before finally grabbing its first lead on a Williams steal-and-slam with 3:55 left.

After trading free throws late, LSU went back up two with 12 seconds remaining, but Moreno scored the game-winner at the buzzer off a near full-court Colin Chandler assist, giving the Cats a 75-73 victory.

The surge was fueled by Denzel Aberdeen, who, after putting up zero first-half points, took over, scoring all 17 of his game points after halftime.

Only four days later, Kentucky was back on the road and playing a game that had far more meaning than just another victory.

It was a chance to take down its border rival No. 24 Tennessee in the Vols’ house — a place the Cats have gone 5-1 in since 2020.

Although the Cats started way better than they did at LSU, it still wasn’t the prettiest.

The Cats ended the first half shooting 43.5% from the field and 35.7% from the three, but struggled in transition, giving up eight turnovers that would turn into 10 points for Tennessee, and struggled overall defending the Vols in the paint.

Tennessee took its largest lead of the game with 3:15 left in the first half, pushing its lead to a 17-point deficit – but the Cats fought back.

Two scores from Jasper Johnson and a three-pointer from Chandler gave the Cats a short, but substantial, 7-0 scoring run to end the first half, and defensively, forced the Vols to go without a field goal in the final three minutes.

At halftime, Kentucky was only down 42-31, and while it was better than 17, a lot needed to change for the Cats if they wanted to complete their second comeback of the week, and someone needed to step up.

It was deja vu from LSU — as the second half began, Denzel Aberdeen was ready to take over again.

At the 18:25 mark, he would put up seven points in just 44 seconds, knocking down two threes to put Kentucky within eight.

Just like LSU, after a quiet first half, totaling just four points, he would be the difference maker for the Kentucky offense, this time, putting up 18 second-half points.

However, it wasn’t just Aberdeen contributing to what would be a 49-point second half. Kentucky shot 50% from the field and 60% from the three, with four other players finishing in double digits.

It was a back-and-forth affair, but with seven and a half minutes to go, the Cats cut the deficit all the way down to two, and it stayed within six over the next seven minutes.

Kentucky only led for 34 seconds the entire game. Luckily, it was the final 34. A Chandler steal and an assist to Oweh would put the Cats up by one for its first lead of the game.

After securing a rebound, Aberdeen would add a layup of his own, and the Cats would take an 80-77 lead with just thirteen seconds left.

The Vols would look to make a final-second layup to send the game to overtime — but Moreno was there to answer the call, and blocked the shot as the buzzer sounded.

For the second time in just five days, Kentucky beat the odds, securing the 80-78 win.

Everyone knows how the saying goes: “Good teams find a way to win.”

It may not always be pretty, and for Mark Pope and his team, It rarely has been, but somehow, someway, the Cats keep crawling their way back.

“They’re starting to earn their confidence through the hard, gritty work that they’re doing — the refusal to, to give into fatigue or frustration and just turning into fight,” Pope said after the win over Tennessee.

“This has not been an easy road, and if we do this right, then at the end of the day, we’re gonna be so grateful that it wasn’t an easy road. Because it gives them a chance to show like what’s inside of them,” he added.

Resilience is something that can only be taught through experience. No matter how much you try to prepare, it can only be taught when adversity is staring you in the face.

Time and time again, Kentucky has gone head-to-head with adversity, but it seems as though they’re learning how to fight back.

Pressure makes diamonds, and Kentucky may still be a diamond in the rough — but when it mattered most, it didn’t crack, not once, not twice.