Ugonna Onyenso Provides Proof that Kentucky has Answers Everywhere

Aaron Bradshaw was the story of the win at Florida, but the play of Ugonna Onyenso in Bradshaw’s place is the story of this Kentucky basketball season.

A quick glance at the stat sheet and you’ll see the 7-footer was fine. Playing in just his fourth game of the year, Onyenso tallied a season-high 14 minutes. He scored 6 points, grabbed 5 rebounds and had a plus-minus of 4.

Not too shabby, but that isn’t the mark of a difference-maker, right? Wrong.

Ugonna Onyenso provided an answer when Aaron Bradshaw got his eyes opened by Florida’s physicality in the first half. The freshman from New Jersey played ten minutes when John Calipari had seen enough.

“With Aaron in the first half, he got muscled. He got manhandled, couldn’t come up with the ball, couldn’t make a layup,” Calipari said after the game. “He started that way in the second half and I said, I’m not gonna play you.”

You know how the story unfolded. Bradshaw returned, nailed a jumper out of an out-of-bounds set, giving him the confidence to bury the go-ahead three with a minute remaining.

While Bradshaw figured it out on the sideline, Ugonna Onyenso provided just what Kentucky needed. He was physical inside. Even if he didn’t grab the rebound, he kept Florida’s bigs away from the ball and affected shots in the paint. He ran the floor and caught long pass over his shoulder, then finished at the rim. Onyenso didn’t finish every shot near the rim, but nobody expected to see him sink a long left-handed hook shot over his opponent. When things weren’t going UK’s way in the paint, Ugo kept the boat afloat.

This is what makes this team special. Every superstar doesn’t have to be a superstar every time they step onto the court.

“The past couple of years if a guy played bad, he was just bad the whole game. It’s just how it was. He’d go 1-for-15,” Calipari said Saturday.

“This team, the good news is if you’re not playing great, I can sub you and it doesn’t hurt that much. I’ve told these guys a thousand times that. You don’t have to be great every moment that you’re playing. We have enough guys now. We’ll just sub and be ready for the next sub or the next game.”

Rob Dillingham entered the Florida game as the team’s second-leading scorer. He missed all four three-point attempts and scored as many points as Onyenso. It didn’t matter. Kentucky won.

This Kentucky basketball team is talented and deep. We quickly learned the Cats have enough weapons in the backcourt. During the trip to Gainesville the Big Blue Nation discovered John Calipari has multiple players he can lean on in the frontcourt. Whenever, wherever this team is tested, Kentucky has answers.

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