Denzel Aberdeen scored 19 points, including some clutch late free throws, as Kentucky beat Texas 85-80 on Wednesday night at Rupp Arena.<\/p>\n
Collin Chandler and Otega Oweh each had 18 points for the Cats, who won their fourth consecutive game.<\/p>\n
Kentucky (13-6, 4-2 Southeastern Conference) got 27 points off the bench, led by Chandler\u2019s 18, compared to just 14 for the Longhorns.<\/p>\n
Texas scored first but Kentucky got baskets from Oweh, Aberdeen and Andrija Jelavic to lead 6-2. After a Longhorns\u2019 basket, Malachi Moreno hit one of two from the line, but Texas responded with a three-point play to tie the game at 7-7.<\/p>\n
Mo Dioubate answered with a three-point play of his own, but Texas scored six in a row to lead 13-10. Back-to-back Oweh baskets gave Kentucky the lead back, but the Longhorns scored four in a row to lead 17-14.<\/p>\n
Kam Williams hit a three to tie the game, but Texas took the lead right back. An Oweh baseline dunk tied the game at 19-19. The Longhorns took the lead again, but an Oweh bucket and a Collin Chandler dunk gave the Cats a 23-21 advantage. Texas tied the game, but Williams hit two free throws and Aberdeen hit a three to give the Cats a five-point lead. The Longhorns cut it to two, but a Moreno fast-break dunk gave UK a 30-25 lead and forced a Texas timeout.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns scored the next seven points to take the lead back, but Aberdeen hit a three and UK led 33-32 with 3:11 left in the first half. After Texas scored four in a row, Moreno scored on a putback and hit a subsequent free throw to tie the game at 36-36. After the Longhorns scored, Chandler hit two free throws and the game was tied again, this time at 38-38. Texas scored again, but Aberdeen answered right before the halftime buzzer and the game was tied 40-40 at the half.<\/p>\n
Kentucky scored the first six points of the second half on baskets by Williams and Oweh, followed by two Williams free throws. After a Texas basket, Oweh scored in the lane and UK led 48-42. The Longhorns scored five in a row before Aberdeen hit two free throws to extend the lead to 50-47. Texas would score again to get within one, again.<\/p>\n
Oweh scored on a putback, then Dioubate scored on a three-point play and Kentucky led 55-49. Texas had a response, scoring seven in a row to lead 56-55 with 11:07 remaining.<\/p>\n
Jelavic scored to give the lead back to the Cats, then Oweh made two free throws and Moreno added a pair of free throws to give UK a 61-56 advantage. After the Longhorns scored, Chandler did the same, stretching the lead to five again. Texas scored, but Chandler scored seven in a row and the Cats led 70-60. Texas scored, then Aberdeen made one of two at the line, giving UK a 71-63 lead.<\/p>\n
After Texas scored to cut the Kentucky lead to six, Chandler hit a three, then scored on a fast-break dunk, and the Cats led 76-65. Texas hit two free throws, then Dioubate hit one and UK led by 10.<\/p>\n
Texas would use an 11-3 run to get within two, 80-78, with 1:19 remaining. However, Aberdeen hit three of four at the line to build the lead back to 83-78 with 13 seconds left. The Longhorns would score to get within three, but would get no closer.<\/p>\n
Kentucky returns to action on Saturday, hosting Ole Miss at Rupp Arena. Tipoff is set for noon ET and the game can be seen on ESPN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denzel Aberdeen scored 19 points, including some clutch late free throws, as Kentucky beat Texas 85-80 on Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1492,1532,34711,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-132935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-featured","tag-headlines","tag-men-s-basketball","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}