Kentucky barely escaped Columbia with a win, but as the saying goes, "a win is a win." I would much rather win ugly than lose pretty, too many times this year, though Kentucky has lost ugly. In a game, the Cats shot just 39% from the floor and 28% from deep, they found a way to fight through 15 turnovers and win. How?
Rebounds.
Kentucky dominated the boards against the Gamecocks
Going into the game, we talked about how poor South Carolina was on the defensive glass, and that played out all night long Tuesday. The Cats had 18 offensive rebounds on the night and 48 total rebounds. They limited South Carolina to just 5 offensive rebounds and 28 rebounds overall.
That's your game right there, and Mark Pope knows it.
"I thought the guys were great on the glass, I thought they came up with stops when they needed to." He went on to tell Tom Leach how important Malachi Moreno was, "His work on the defensive glass was massive for us." Moreno would finish with 8 points and 11 rebounds in 26 minutes of action.
That kind of effort will be needed every night going forward, but it wasn't just Moreno.
Trent Noah showed up in a big way
While Trent Noah's shot continues to be off, the sophomore from Harlan was massive on the boards. In just 6 minutes of game action, he grabbed the 3rd most rebounds on the team, 5. You get a rebound a minute, you are getting playing time. He finished with a +7 as well, something Pope noticed in the post-game:
"All 4 of our guys off the bench were positive +/- tonight."
That kind of bench production is a huge win for a team with every bench player in the negative during SEC play coming into this game.
Hopefully, the shots start falling, but if not, the rebounding rate will be something to monitor going forward.