Kentucky got its season started in style with an impressive 95-63 win against Howard.
The Wildcats were big favorites going in, but with National Player of the Year big man Oscar Tshiebwe, point guard Sahvir Wheeler, and improved sophomore forward Daimion Collins all out, that made the performance especially impressive.
Here are some of the most significant and telling numbers from the game.
+36 ... Kentucky's advantage when CJ Fredrick was on the court. He played for 30 minutes so that could also just reflect the overall team domination, but Fredrick was clearly a big part of it. He was UK's second-leading scorer (20) on an efficient 6/9 shooting. He made great decisions with the ball.
20-10 ... UK's assist to turnover ratio as a team, compared to Howard's 10 assists and 16 turnovers.
20 ... Kentucky points off 16 Howard turnovers.
15-9-8 ... Cason Wallace came very close to a triple-double in the first game of the season. If he starts playing off the ball it could be tough to approach that in a lot of later games, but as it was, Wallace demonstrated that he can do a little bit of everything in his Kentucky debut.
12 ... Three-point attempts for Antonio Reeves. He attempted as many three-pointers as any other UK player attempted in terms of overall field goals. When you shoot 50% that's not a problem. He clearly has a green light and is a very confident shooter. In 25 minutes Reeves had 22 points (8/16, 6/12). The lack of contributions in other stat categories was a bit reminiscent of Kellan Grady, except Reeves also had three turnovers.
11/24 ... Kentucky's three-point marksmanship for the game. Reeves accounted for a lot of that on his own (6/12) but five other players knocked down outside shots. Kentucky won't shoot 45.8% for the season but you can see this team does have the potential to be a good shooting squad. It at least seems, at this early point, like they may have enough. Whether that shows up when it counts is anyone's guess.
+5 ... Kentucky's rebounding margin in a game without Oscar Tshiebwe. Howard missed 44 shots and that created a lot of offensive rebound opportunities.
4 ... Blocked shots for Ugonna Onyenso in 20 minutes of play. But it should be noted that in a 32-point blowout, UK was only +2 for the 20 minutes when Onyenso played, which means they were +30 in the other 20 minutes.
1.301 ... Points per offensive possession for Kentucky. For context, South Dakota State was No. 1 in points per possession last year at 1.162. This was an extremely strong offensive performance for Kentucky (54.8% FG).
