One broken possession shows exactly why Kentucky looks so disconnected

You can stare at scoring averages, efficiency charts, and defensive ratings all day long. But sometimes one possession tells you more about a team than any spreadsheet can.

For Kentucky, that possession belongs to Denzel Aberdeen and Otega Oweh.

Aberdeen beat his man off the dribble and drove into the lane. Immediately, three Gonzaga defenders collapsed on him. That’s what you want offensively, drive, draw help, create an easy kick-out. Standing alone in the corner, completely unguarded, was Oweh.

This is what modern basketball is built around: paint touches and drive-and-kick threes.

But instead of making the simple read, Aberdeen forced up a contested shot at the rim. He finished the night 3-for-12 from the field. That particular attempt wasn’t close. Oweh went through a phantom shooting motion in the corner, then just dropped his arms and stood there.

That’s not just a missed pass. That’s a snapshot of a team that doesn’t look connected. They are not trusting each other, they are not looking for each other, and there is no other way to describe it.

Kentucky basketball assist numbers expose lack of trust

The assist numbers in Kentucky’s losses back it up:

• Louisville: 14 assists
• Michigan State: 13 assists
• North Carolina: 8 assists
• Gonzaga: 12 assists

Compare that to last year, when Kentucky was averaging around 17 assists per game and could string together possessions that actually stressed defenses. This year? The ball sticks. Drives die on the vine. Shooters are ignored. The offense looks like five guys taking turns instead of one unit working together.

It shows up beyond just the box score. There are long stretches where players don’t talk on defense. Rotations are late. Multiple guys guard the same player while someone else cuts wide open. Missed boxouts become second-chance points. Everything looks disconnected.

That’s why that Aberdeen-Oweh play hits so hard. It’s not about one guard missing one pass. It’s about the habit of trusting teammates or not trusting them. Either make plays for each other or not.

Teams that like playing together swing the ball, cut hard even when they know they might not get it, and celebrate each other’s success. Teams that don’t? They look like this Kentucky group: forcing tough shots, hoping for whistles, staring at each other after breakdowns, and getting booed by their own fans as the deficit hits 30.

These players might genuinely like each other off the floor. But right now, the on-court product says something else: they don’t play like a group that believes the best shot will come from the pass, not from forcing their own.

Until that changes, it won’t matter how talented the roster is. Kentucky will keep producing possessions just like that one and keep stacking losses that look worse than the last.

This season is quickly getting away from Mark Pope.