FINAL: Kentucky takes down Troy 76-57 in first round, Mark Pope secures first NCAAT win

It wasn’t always pretty, but Mark Pope finally has an NCAA Tournament win on his resume.

The 3-seeded Kentucky Wildcats used a 16-0 run in the second half to cruise past the 14-seeded Troy Trojans, winning 76-57 Friday night in Milwaukee during the first round of the Big Dance. Otega Oweh paced the ‘Cats with 20 points, eight rebounds, and six assists. He was aided by a trio of 13-point scorers: Koby Brea, Andrew Carr, and Brandon Garrison. Collin Chandler provided huge minutes as well, scoring nine points in his 10 minutes of action.

Kentucky shot 47.5 percent from the field and 10-26 from deep while holding Troy to just 34.9 percent shooting with an 8-32 mark from long range. UK dished out 23 assists to only 10 turnovers.

After an uncomfortable first-half performance, Kentucky put together a much better second half to lift a huge weight off Pope’s shoulders. UK advances to the Round of 32 and will take on the winner of (6) Illinois and (11) Xavier on Sunday night in Milwaukee. Tipoff is still to be determined. Illinois vs. Xavier will start later Friday night.

Kentucky looked like the clearly more talented team out of the gate but spent most of the first half being far too cute with the basketball. Several Wildcat turnovers came off passes that had no room for error or were ill-advised attempts entirely. Oweh and Carr, who combined for 21 points in the first half, were humming offensively though to keep UK in front.

Troy only led the opening half for 23 total seconds. The Trojans struggled against UK’s size, shooting 33.3 percent from the field (on 16 three-point attempts) through the first 20 minutes with a 4-9 mark on layups. The Wildcats finally stepped on the gas late in the half, rattling off a 10-0 kill shot run that gave them a double-digit lead for the first time all night with roughly 90 seconds until the intermission. A massive end-to-end, and-one dunk for Williams helped fuel the ‘Cats.

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But Troy would connect on a three-pointer with 45 seconds left in the half to make it just an eight-point lead, 35-27, for Kentucky at the break. UK was shooting 50 percent overall, but just 3-10 from deep.

Kentucky came out of the locker room with an immediate triple from Oweh, which was followed up the next time down by another make from deep courtesy of Brea. But again, the ‘Cats could not blow the game wide open. Troy even cut its deficit down to just six with 13 minutes left in the game. Then Chandler and Garrison stepped up to save the day.

The Wildcats started raining down threes, burning off a 16-0 run in a matter of minutes — 15 of those points coming from Chandler and Garrison. Now ahead by 22 points with less than eight minutes to go, Kentucky was on the verge of putting this one away for good. But a poorly timed scoring drought of over three minutes (mixed with a handful of turnovers) for the ‘Cats gave Troy some life. The Trojans proceeded to go on a 9-0 run in less than two minutes, forcing Pope to call a timeout.

The comeback attempt didn’t last long though. Kentucky punched right back with a 9-0 run to go back in front by 20 points. It was the last blow for the Trojans as the ‘Cats settled on a 19-point win.