LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky Wildcats’ return to Rupp Arena made for an odd night.

After spending a week on the road — suffering their first loss and getting arguably their biggest win of the 2024-25 season — Mark Pope’s Wildcats appeared on their way to an easy victory over Colgate on Wednesday.

The No. 5-ranked Cats still won — by a final score of 78-67 — but not without plenty of drama first.

Kentucky scored the first 17 points of the game — and the Raiders missed their first 10 shot attempts — but things took a weird turn from there. After falling in that 17-0 hole, Colgate went on an 11-0 run against the heavily favored Wildcats, who missed 11 consecutive shots after jumping out to their early lead.

The Raiders made six of their final seven shots of the first half, including a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to cut Kentucky’s lead to 38-36 going into the locker room, a head-scratchingly slim margin after the way the game had started.

It got worse.

Colgate actually took the advantage away from the Wildcats — going up 45-42 at one point early in the second half and still clinging to the lead at the first TV timeout after halftime — but Kentucky ended the upset hopes there.

Coming out of that TV timeout, Jaxson Robinson buried back-to-back 3-pointers, then freshman Trent Noah hit a 3-pointer, and then Otega Oweh made a 3-pointer, giving UK a 12-0 run en route to a 58-47 lead.

Before that flurry, Koby Brea was the only UK player to make a long-range shot, the rest of the Wildcats collectively missing their first 13 attempts from 3-point range.

Brea made his first four 3-point shots, ended up 5 for 8 from deep and scored 17 points for the Wildcats, who had four other players in double figures: Amari Williams (15 points), Oweh (15) Andrew Carr (11) and Robinson (11). Carr had 10 rebounds, and Williams added eight boards.

The Cats led by 18 points with under four minutes left before Colgate hit them with another run toward the end to tighten the final margin.

Kentucky came into the game shooting just 27.1% from deep over its past four games, with only seven 3-point makes in each of the last three games. The Cats went 10 for 31 (32.3%) from long range Wednesday.

UK improved to 9-1 on the season, this victory coming after a 70-66 loss at Clemson eight days earlier and an improbable 90-89 win over Gonzaga in Seattle over the weekend.

Colgate, which came into the night at No. 271 in the KenPom ratings and 31.5-point underdogs in Rupp Arena, fell to 2-9 on the season with the loss.

Kentucky was playing without both of its top two point guards.

Regular starter Lamont Butler sat out for the second consecutive game with an ankle injury sustained in the loss to Clemson last week, though Pope expressed optimism that he would be back soon. Backup point guard Kerr Kriisa missed his first game of the season and is out indefinitely after suffering a foot injury in the comeback win over Gonzaga on Saturday night that will necessitate surgery. Kriisa did not join the Wildcats on the bench area against Colgate.

With UK’s top two playmakers sidelined, Robinson took over the primary point guard duties, and Brea joined the starting lineup for the first time this season.

Kentucky’s next game

The Wildcats will return to Rupp Arena on Saturday, and it’ll be a big one.

Kentucky hosts in-state rival Louisville at 5:15 p.m. ET on ESPN, the first edition of the rivalry game with Mark Pope in charge of the Cats and Pat Kelsey as head coach of the Cardinals.

It’s been an eventful season so far for Louisville, which lost by 22 points at home to now-No. 1 Tennessee in its second game but started the season 5-1 before consecutive losses to Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Duke over the past couple of weeks.

U of L (6-4) started the day at No. 56 nationally in the KenPom ratings going into Wednesday night’s home game against UTEP, which the Cards won 77-74 to end their three-game losing skid.

____

©2024 Lexington Herald-Leader. Visit kentucky.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.