Let’s acknowledge that it wasn’t a great offensive performance by the Wildcats Friday night. There were some bright moments for sure, including Milan Momcilovic hitting four 3-pointers, punctuated by a behind-the-back dribble pull-up triple in traffic late in the second half.
But overall, it was not a clean offensive performance against Little Rock, an exhibition game Kentucky won 69-49. The Wildcats turned the ball over 19 times against the Trojans. 19 times. They only had 12 assists. Malachi Moreno
and Alex Wilkins each had four turnovers. Zoom Diallo had three turnovers.
Of all players who played at least two minutes, Milan Momcilovic was the only Wildcat without a turnover.
After the game, head coach Mark Pope said he’s unconcerned with the turnovers.
“I’m not overly concerned about it. I think it was more a product of this being their first time under the lights and feeling a little bit different,” said Pope. “Our guys have been really solid.”
Kentucky shot the ball really well in the second half. In the first half, though, they only shot 10-28 from the field and 4-13 from 3-point range. For the game, the Wildcats shot 43.9 percent from the floor and 12-28 from 3-point range.
Pope admitted some of those struggles came because he opted to go with a vanilla approach and run a limited set of offensive sets.
“We only had seven actions the whole night. We limited ourselves,” said Pope.
There was enough, though, to suggest that the Wildcats are going to be a good offensive team this season. The ball movement was lively against Little Rock. And again, it’s only October 16th. This Wildcats team will score and take care of the ball this season.
