Kentucky Basketball: Wildcats pound Texas A&M at Rupp Arena

Kentucky basketball drops 100 or more in their fifth game of the season versus Texas A&M.

This wasn’t just a Kentucky Wildcat win, this was an epic beatdown.

Texas A&M traveled to Lexington on Tuesday night and were romped from start to finish, resulting in a 100-58 victory for John Calipari’s 6th ranked Wildcats.

The ‘Cats were led by four double figure scorers, including Malik Monk, who scored 26 points on 8-of-11 shooting (5-of-7 from beyond the arc). De’Aaron Fox added 15 points, six assists and five rebounds, while Isaiah Briscoe and Edrice ‘Bam’ Adebayo combined to drop 23 points.

The Aggies actually took a 3-0 lead to begin Tuesday’s match-up, but were blitzed from there on out. Kentucky’s pressure defense exposed A&M’s lack of a true point guard, as the Wildcats were able to consistently turn the Aggies over. On the evening, Texas A&M had just 12 assists to 25 turnovers (!). While big man Tyler Davis had seven turnovers himself, ball handlers JC Hampton and D.J. Hogg combined to rack up 10 giveaways.

And why was this bad news for the Aggies? Well, Kentucky is one of the best transition teams in the country. When you give them easy opportunities to get ahead of your defense (live ball turnovers), they’re going to make their opponent pay.

Meanwhile, when the Wildcats weren’t scoring on the fast break, they executed well in the half court. They shot 52 percent from beyond the arc (13 made threes), had 16 assists on 33 field goals and only turned the ball over nine times. Briscoe knocked down 3-of-3 three’s and Monk caught fire for stretches of the game.

Kentucky isn’t going to win all their conference games by 40 plus points and they have some stiff tests upcoming (South Carolina at the end of the month and Florida on the road in the beginning of February), but is it really unrealistic to think that the Wildcats can potentially run the table in the league? The SEC racked up some quality non-conference wins, but they are surely the worst of the Power Five conferences and don’t pose any real threats outside of South Carolina and Florida.

Even though the Wildcats could come out sluggish on one night and drop an unexpected game, they have so much more talent than any team in the league that it would be stunning if they didn’t win the regular season title by more than a couple of games.

Next: Villanova, Butler set to square off at Hinkle

Meanwhile for A&M, they’re still a solid team that has a chance to make the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky is a poor match-up for the Aggies and Billy Kennedy still has a lethal front court tandem, Davis and Robert Williams, that will be bothersome for the rest of the league.

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