Kentucky Basketball: 3 takeaways from huge win over Duke in 2024 Champions Classic

Kentucky moved to 3-0 on the season with its biggest win. The Wildcats used a huge second half to take down an incredibly talented Duke team 77-72 on Monday night at the Champions Classic in Atlanta. In what was the first of many ranked matchups this season for the Wildcats, Kentucky proved that the spotlight wasn’t too bright against the Blue Devils. Andrew Carr led Kentucky with 17 points in the win. Otega Oweh added 15 points and big man Amari Williams added 10 points and 8 rebounds narrowly missing out on a double-double.

Here are three takeaways from the Kentucky win. 

1. This team is very well-coached

The Wildcats had a somewhat shaky first half against Duke. Kentucky jumped out to an early lead before the Blue Devils came storming back to take a nine-point lead at the half. Kentucky started hot from three making its first five, but went cold and only managed two more makes from behind the arc before halftime.

Mark Pope made some critical halftime adjustments and instead of relying on the three to get the win, Kentucky took the fight directly to Duke. After only six points in the paint in the first 20 minutes, Kentucky recorded 20 points in the paint in the second half. Kentucky also upped the pressure and forced seven Duke turnovers in the second half while limiting its own turnovers to just 2. 

It would have been easy to fold when Duke went on a run to take a nine-point lead into the half,  especially when shots weren’t falling, but Pope has this team bought in. In-game adjustments can swing games, but some coaches don’t do this well. Pope went from trying to beat Duke from the perimeter to battling inside, which proved to be the best way to play the Blue Devils.

2. Three-point shooting is likely to stay

Kentucky has been one of the best three-point shooting teams so far this season. The Wildcats made 10 threes against Duke and are now averaging just over 11 made threes per game. I was watching this coming into the game against the Blue Devils. In its two prior games, Duke allowed a total of 11 made threes and held teams below 27 percent from deep. If there was to be some regression from the fast start to the season, this was likely the game to see it.

For most teams hitting double-digit threes only happens a handful of times in a season, but so far with Kentucky it’s the norm. The 10 made threes in this game were a season low, as the Wildcats made 11 against Wright State and 13 against Bucknell. 

Kentucky has four players on the season making the three at a 36 percent or better clip. There aren’t many teams that have one player making threes at this rate let alone four. The biggest factor from three for Kentucky is that Koby Brea hasn’t fallen off at all. He made nearly 50 percent from deep last year on six attempts per game. This season he’s made 75 percent on just over five attempts. Having that kind of stability on the perimeter gives Kentucky an extremely high floor on offense.

3. Kentucky is one of the top teams in college basketball

Mark Pope has done an incredible job piecing this roster together and this was on display against Duke. Coming into the year none of the players on the roster had played together before landing in Lexington and only Jaxson Robinson had any experience playing for Pope. It wouldn’t be crazy to have a first year that saw some early struggles. But so far this season, everything looks like it’s working. 

Kentucky is one of the more balanced teams in college basketball. It has a high-powered offense that will be hard to stop most nights, many teams won’t be able to keep up when Kentucky is hitting 10 plus threes each game. But the defense is almost as good as the offense. In this game, Kentucky held Duke to 72 points. But what was more impressive was that Duke only made 39 percent from the floor and 17 percent from three. If Kentucky was able to do this to one of the top teams in the country, I have a hard time believing that it won’t be able to shut down most of the teams remaining on the schedule. 

If Kentucky can keep the high-powered offense and the suffocating defense going all season, I think the Wildcats will be one of the favorites to not only win the SEC but compete for a national title.