What a difference a week can make. Just last Saturday Kentucky was in Gainesville playing for a chance at the top spot in the Southeastern Conference. Now, after back-to-back losses, the Wildcats sit in eighth place in the conference when you factor in the potential tie breaker situations.
The Wildcats are once again on the road today as they take on the Auburn Tigers, led by Steven Pearl (son of former Auburn Head Coach Bruce Pearl), fighting to keep themselves out of the NCAA Tournament bubble conversations. The Tigers also have their backs up against the wall as they have lost five consecutive games and are looking to get themselves back in the tournament picture as a whole.
This Auburn team on paper is eerily similar to this Kentucky team. They have several quality wins over teams such as St. John’s, Arkansas, and Florida. They also took a very good Houston team down to the final seconds where they only lost by a single point. So, with that being said, it is fair to say that one thing both teams lack is consistency in wins.
A lot of people may overlook this Auburn team but I’m here to tell you that they have just as much talent as most teams in the country. Their guard play is elite and that is the first thing that Kentucky will have to prioritize to have a shot of pulling out a road win tonight. Keyshawn Hall and Tahaad Pettiford average a combined 36 points per game and they both shoot the ball at a high clip, so it would be in the Wildcats’ best interest to not leave them open like they did for the Georgia guards last Tuesday night.
Another thing to keep an eye on is foul trouble. The last couple of games this has hindered the Wildcats and you can expect Auburn to take advantage of the Wildcats’ lack of depth. With injuries, quick foul trouble is the way to take more Kentucky players off the court and it’s a tactic that any team will try to use, especially on their own home court. Auburn shoots the second-most free throw attempts in the country as they draw more than 20 fouls a game on average. So with this being a home court advantage for Auburn, you can expect that the whistle will likely be in their favor.
This week, Mark Pope addressed the media in his routine press conference. He discussed the Georgia loss, previewed the matchup at Auburn, and gave a minor update on Jayden Quaintance. You can check it out from our YouTube channel above.
The already short-handed Kentucky team had another name listed on the SEC’s Initial Report Friday night as it appears Denzel Aberdeen has been tabbed as ‘Probable’ for the game, dictating that something has happened recently that the staff is monitoring.
If you caught it during the Georgia game, you could tell there was a moment that he appeared to be favoring his shoulder after a play. There’s not been much update to that after the game concluded, so it seems like this is still to be determined before game time.
Now I think it is likely that Aberdeen will still be suiting up tonight, however, it is something to keep an eye on as Kentucky will need stellar guard play from himself, Collin Chandler, and Otega Oweh tonight to squeeze out a win inside Neville Arena. Without Aberdeen, that gets much, much harder.
Kentucky desperately needs to get back into the win column tonight for a couple of reasons. For one, they need it to avoid playing on Wednesday for the SEC Tournament. You want to avoid that and get a bye to preserve more energy for the later games in the tournament and not have to play nearly every day of the five day bracket.
Secondly, just for overall seeding for the big dance. Your regular season determines your bracket positioning and — as you already know — if you get a low seed for the NCAA Tournament then your path just to make a deep run in the bracket is going to be a juggernaut in itself. That’s why you ‘take care of business’ in the regular season so that your path in the bracket is hopefully much easier, giving you the best opportunity for a deep run. If you don’t take care of business and you keep losing games you aren’t supposed to, you’re at the mercy of the selection committee.
Lastly, with a loss tonight, it would be the team’s third loss in a row, creating the largest losing streak of the season and coming at the worst possible time. In February you want your team to have worked out their kinks already as they plan to gear up for postseason play — not still figuring them out. So losing late in February would be a bad sign as a whole.
Auburn is kind of similar to Georgia as their defense is not the best, ranking second-worst in the conference with only Oklahoma giving up more points to their opponent each game. With that being said, the Tigers can also score at a high clip as they average right at 84 points a game.
As bad as I want Kentucky to get back in the win column tonight, I have the Wildcats dropping another game, unfortunately, with a final score of 82-77.
What are your thoughts and prediction for tonight’s game? Leave them in the comments below.
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