Kentucky basketball hands Texas A&M first loss in SEC play as Cats win third game in a row

LEXINGTON, Ky. — During Tuesday's game against Georgia, Kentucky's men's basketball team needed Oscar Tshiebwe to live up to his billing as the reigning unanimous national player of the year. He answered the call with one of the most dominant performances of his career, scoring 37 points and pulling down 24 rebounds in an 85-71 win at Rupp Arena.

In the same arena four days later, this time against Texas A&M, Tshiebwe wasn't nearly as commanding.

It was a quiet — for him — outing, as he finished with seven points and 17 rebounds.

But what Saturday’s 76-67 victory showed is the Wildcats can win without Tshiebwe having to put the team on his back.

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"You've got to play different because he's not in there. … But it's nice to see you've got guys," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "We've got unbelievable leadership."

"Guys" such as senior guard Antonio Reeves, who had a game-high 23 points off the bench. And "guys" such as Jacob Toppin, who had 17 points of his own. Two more Wildcats, CJ Fredrick (12 points) and Cason Wallace (11), also reached double figures.

"Everybody is a threat," said Reeves, whose point total was a season high, and the most he's had since joining Kentucky as a transfer after beginning his college career at Illinois State. "Everybody can make plays or find plays for one another, and knock down open jumpers. We (stressed) that enough. If Oscar needs help, we're going to help him. We're all a team. We're all together. We're all a family."

Junior forward Lance Ware, whom Calipari took great care to praise — "Lance is an unbelievable leader. (He's) maybe not playing a whole lot but still leads, still is a big piece of what's going on," Calipari said — following Saturday's win, pointed out the well-balanced effort showed the team is far more than simply Tshiebwe.

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"We have players," Ware said. "Antonio played well, CJ played well, Jacob played well, Cason played well, so when other people come in the game and add to the team — we have good players. There's no surprise. I mean, I think when he has 30 (points) and 24 (rebounds), we can win by 20."

Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams said he thought his team did the best it could to fluster Tshiebwe. Though the star big man picking up two fouls and playing just 10 minutes in the first half — he scored no points and finished with just three rebounds before intermission — didn't hurt.

"We were struggling to figure out a way to stop him before the ball was shot," Williams said. "But if you look at a lot of his baskets — percentage wise, and when he's scoring at the rim — a high percentage of it is coming off someone else's misses. Sometimes it's even his. ... He was in foul trouble in the first half, so he probably didn't get the possession count he normally does."

That UK (13-6, 4-3 SEC) won without Tshiebwe as the fulcrum wasn’t the only aspect that stood out. It was the manner in which the Wildcats did it. Rarely a team to put up shot after shot behind the arc, on Saturday, Kentucky fired at will.

The Wildcats shot 32 triples — tied for the fourth-most ever under Calipari’s watch, and just the fifth time in his 14 seasons they’ve reached the 30-attempt mark. Though it wasn’t the picture of efficiency — UK made just 11 of those attempts, a 34.4% conversion rate — it well outpaced Texas A&M, which went 3 of 16 (18.8%) from distance.

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Reeves accounted for half of Kentucky's connection, going 5 of 11 from the arc. Freshman forward Chris Livingston went 2 for 2. The rest of the Wildcats combined to shoot 4 of 19 on 3s.

Calipari couldn't have cared less.

"Watch the game. Were they open? Yeah," he said. "Some of them we missed. Did you go, 'How in the world did he miss that?' Because they're not machines and they're not robots, and there (are) some times they miss. It's like, the next guy misses and the next guy — it's contagious.

"But the other side of it is, we had the courage to keep shooting. CJ, Antonio, they had the courage to keep shooting. How about Chris's two? How about Cason is 0 for 4? He's 0 for 7 at halftime — 0 for 7 (from the field), 0 for 4 from the 3 — but he came back and banged that one at the top, which was a big play."

Wallace's aforementioned triple came with 15:43 remaining, pushing Kentucky's lead to four (43-39).

Yet Saturday's margin of victory could have been far greater if only the hosts had capitalized more often on the visitors’ mistakes: Texas A&M (13-6, 5-1 SEC), which suffered its first loss in league play, committed 16 turnovers.

Kentucky scored only 16 points off those giveaways.

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While the Wildcats walked away with their third win in as many games, it wasn’t because they solved Tyrece Radford. The Aggies’ 6-foot-2 guard poured in a team-high 22 points. He made seven of his 11 shots from the field and all six of his free-throw attempts. His showing at the line was mirrored by his teammates: Texas A&M went 16-for-16 at the charity stripe in Saturday's loss.

UK returns to action Tuesday, as it hits the road to face Vanderbilt at 9 p.m. in Nashville, Tennessee.

Reeves views it, and the rest of the schedule, as another opportunity for the Wildcats to showcase gradual, ever-present progress.

"I believe we can get way better. I feel like this is just the start," he said. "I feel like if we keep winning and being a family, the sky's the limit for us."

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @RyanABlack.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky vs Texas A&M basketball game: Wildcats win 3rd game in a row