If you've been watching Kentucky basketball lately, you've probably needed some heart medication. The Wildcats have turned into the SEC's comeback specialists, stringing together three straight wins that had fans biting their nails until the final buzzer. Mark Pope's squad showed they might struggle in the first half, but boy, do they know how to finish games.
The madness started on January 14th down in Baton Rouge against LSU. Kentucky looked absolutely awful for most of the game, trailing by 18 points in the second half. I was ready to turn it off and go do literally anything else. But then Otega Oweh and the guys decided to actually show up, chipping away at the lead until freshman Malachi Moreno caught a full-court pass and hit a jumper as time expired. Final score: 75-74. Christian Laettner vibes, anyone? Moreno's heroics saved what could've been a disastrous loss and kept Kentucky's season from completely going off the rails.
Three days later, the Wildcats headed to Knoxville to face #24 Tennessee, and if you thought they learned their lesson about slow starts, you'd be wrong. Kentucky trailed by 17 points in the first half again, and I'm starting to think Pope draws up these deficits on purpose just to give us all anxiety. Denzel Aberdeen went off for 22 points, with 18 coming in the second half, and the Cats clawed their way back to an 80-78 win. The game ended with some pushing and shoving after Tennessee's desperation attempt at the buzzer failed, because of course it did. Nothing's ever easy with this team.
The winning streak hit three on January 21st when Texas came to Rupp Arena. This one was actually competitive throughout—the game was tied 40-40 at halftime—but Kentucky finally found some consistency in the second half. Aberdeen, Collin Chandler, and Oweh all scored 18+ points as the Wildcats held off a late Texas rally to win 85-80. It wasn't as dramatic as the previous two, but hey, I'll take a relatively normal game at this point.
So what have we learned from this three-game stretch? Kentucky can't start games to save their lives, but they've got some serious fight in them when things get desperate. Aberdeen and Oweh have been clutch when it matters, and guys like Moreno and Jasper Johnson are stepping up when called upon. The bad news is that relying on 17 and 18-point comebacks isn't exactly a sustainable tournament strategy. The good news? At least they're finding ways to win, which is more than a lot of folks thought they'd be doing a couple weeks ago. If Pope can figure out how to get these guys to play a full 40 minutes, this team might actually be dangerous come March.