Kentucky Basketball: 3 takeaways from UK’s stunning upset loss to Evansville

Kentucky basketball suffered a shocking 67-64 loss to Evansville at Rupp Arena after being ranked No. 1 in the AP poll. Here are the biggest takeaways from the game.

Kentucky basketball suffered the first big upset loss of the college basketball season on Tuesday night, falling 67-64 at home to an Evansville team that was picked to finish No. 8 in the Missouri Valley Conference.

The Wildcats became the No. 1 team in the country on Monday following a 2-0 start that included a convincing win over Michigan State, the top-ranked team in the preseason, and a blowout over Eastern Kentucky.

However, Evansville was able to exploit some weaknesses in the Wildcats that neither of UK’s two previous opponents were able to.  They routinely took advantage of Kentucky’s defense to get matchups they wanted off of switches with senior K.J. Riley (18 points) and Arizona State and Kansas transfer Sam Cunliffe (17 points) carrying the offensive load.

And, as head coach Walter McCarty said after the game, the Purple Aces played about as well as they could.

"“We just believed and trusted each other and made plays for each other. Guys came out and gave their all. They’ve got a good basketball team…we played a heck of a game tonight.”"

The Wildcats looked flat for much of the contest and it showed in the effort categories, particularly rebounding – Evansville is the much smaller team but won the rebounding battle. Kentucky also posted a season-high in turnovers (13) in an area were some struggles can be expected of a young team, yet there were several other areas where the Purple Aces simply exposed weaknesses in UK.

Here are the three biggest takeaways from Evansville’s historic upset: