{"id":132974,"date":"2026-01-22T04:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132974\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T04:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:19:12","slug":"kentucky-wildcats-highlights-mvp-and-twitter-reactions-vs-texas-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132974\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky Wildcats highlights, MVP and Twitter reactions vs Texas Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a game that featured a tied score, 40-40 at halftime, and 11 ties and lead changes, Kentucky Basketball<\/a> unleashed a 19-9 run in less than five minutes midway through the second half to create separation from Texas. It was the difference in Kentucky outlasting Texas 85-80 Wednesday night at Rupp Arena.<\/p>\n

Denzel Aberdeen, who led the Wildcats with 19 points, made six game-sealing free throws in the final minute to preserve the win for the Wildcats.<\/p>\n

This was not a walk in the park for Kentucky. Texas is a really solid team, and they showed a lot of fight Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

But the Wildcats prevailed to run their winning streak to four games, going a clutch 30-of-35 from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

Andrija Jelavi\u0107 got the start for Kentucky tonight at the four-spot, and he quickly scored four points to get the Wildcats\u2019 offense going early.<\/p>\n

It was a tightly-contested first half, with the two teams trading runs to take an even 40-40 score into the locker room. Neither team led by more than five points, and there were 11 ties and eight lead changes.<\/p>\n

Kentucky came into Wednesday night having trailed by at least 12 points in the first half in each of its last three games. Against Texas, the Wildcats never trailed by more than three points in the first half, shooting 41.7% from the floor and knocking down seven of eight free-throw attempts.<\/p>\n

Otega Oweh had his motor going full throttle, getting to double figures in less than 12 minutes and putting Texas seven-foot big man Matas Vokietatitis on a poster with an emphatic baseline-driving dunk.<\/p>\n

Malachi Moreno, making his first home start since his buzzer-beater at LSU last Wednesday, was all over the stat sheet in the first 20 minutes. Moreno had six points, three rebounds (all offensive), a team-high three assists, and two blocks.<\/p>\n

Kentucky got off to a good start in the second half, getting some high-percentage shots to fall that opened up a lead as many as six points in the first four minutes.<\/p>\n

A key moment came when Texas\u2019s Simeon Wilcher was assessed a Flagrant One foul on Kentucky\u2019s Otega Oweh with just over 10 minutes to play in the second half.<\/p>\n

With the Wildcats clinging 57-56, Oweh converted both free throws and then lobbed a pass to Malachi Moreno on the ensuing Kentucky inbounds pass. Moreno was fouled in mid-air, and he converted both free throws to extend Kentucky\u2019s lead to 61-56.<\/p>\n

Those four free throws were just the start of a 19-9 run that proved to be<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t even known if Chandler would play Wednesday night, having been sick leading up to the game. But just like Otega Oweh at LSU last Wednesday, whatever sickness Chandler had didn\u2019t bother him. He went out and played a great game, especially in the second half.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t look now, but Chandler is playing with a ton of confidence. With Kam Williams leaving tonight\u2019s game with a foot injury (there was no update at the time this story was published), Chandler stepped right in and delivered a dynamite performance. Next man up; this team embodies that mantra. Chandler was the definition of it on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Chandler tied Otega Oweh for a team-high 18 points, and he also tied a team-high with seven rebounds and had two steals. Most importantly, he was a perfect six-for-six from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

Kentucky vs. Texas Twitter Reactions<\/p>\n

Big Blue Nation had a stressful couple of hours Wednesday night (when is a Kentucky Basketball game not stressful?). Here are some of the best reactions from Kentucky fans on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a game that featured a tied score, 40-40 at halftime, and 11 ties and lead changes, Kentucky…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13321,56882,43894,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-132974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-kentucky-wildcats-basketball","tag-kentucky-wildcats-basketball-news","tag-kentucky-wildcats-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132974","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=132974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}