Kentucky assistant says the "biggest thing is stopping Kobe Brown"

With five players averaging double-digit scoring for Missouri, the Tigers have options with an offense that scores nearly 90 points per game. Through 12 games so far this season, Missouri’s 88.8 scoring average ranks fourth nationally and is second to Arizona (90.2 ppg) among Power 5 teams.

D’Moi Hodge, who followed first-year head coach Dennis Gates from Cleveland State to Missouri, is the team’s leading scorer with 16.7 points per game in the backcourt. But it’s veteran guard/forward Kobe Brown who has the Kentucky staff’s attention after watching tape on the Wildcats’ next opponent, according to UK assistant KT Turner at Tuesday’s pre-Missouri press conference in Lexington.

When asked what stands out about the Tigers, Turner singled out Brown’s play as the biggest threat.

“Kobe Brown, he really helps them out, the way he can bring the ball up, he can post it, he can hit trail 3s,” Turner explained. “The way they play five out, they just spread you out. We’re gonna have to do a really good job with guarding the ball.”

To Turner’s point, the 6-foot-8 Brown is shooting 44.4 percent from outside in Mizzou’s spaced-out attack, a gigantic increase from a career 23.6 percent clip prior to this season. He went 3-for-4 in last week’s blowout win over 16th-ranked Illinois and today he earned SEC Player of the Week honors for his 31-point performance in the Braggin’ Rights rivalry game win. He won the Lute Olson Award National Player of the Week award, too.

For the month of December, Brown is 7-for-11 on 3-point tries and 23-for-38 from the field, plus averages of six rebounds and three-and-a-half assists per game in that four-game span.

Not just about Brown, though, Turner also sees penetration from Mizzou’s guards, namely Nick Honor, Mizzou’s starting point guard with 10.5 points each game.

Turner said, “They have some guys, Nick Honor, that can really get to the paint, but the biggest thing is stopping Kobe Brown from his catch-and-shoot 3s. He’s shooting the ball really well, especially from the trail spot and posting us up.”

Honor leads Mizzou with a 46.3 percent shooting percentage from deep, one of three players shooting 40 percent or better from outside, along with Brown and Hodge.

Kentucky’s history versus Kobe Brown

Kobe Brown is having a breakout year so far for the black and gold, but he’s a familiar face to John Calipari’s Kentucky program. Tomorrow will mark the fourth time the Wildcats have played against the versatile forward and the most he’s scored on Kentucky was a nine-point performance as a freshman in a 12-point loss in January of 2020.

Last year, Brown was held to 2-for-9 shooting from the field while battling foul trouble in Kentucky’s 27-point win over the Tigers.

Now he has a new head coach who has Missouri scoring the most points in the Southeastern Conference, but Kentucky game-planned around keeping Brown in check so he doesn’t do to the Wildcats what he did to the Illini in his last game.

Hear more from Turner below.