Kentucky eRUPPs for 100; Colonials pressed from the jump

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Image courtesy of Robert Morris Athletics

100-60. Where does one even begin?

From the jump, John Calipari and his Wildcats swarmed the Robert Morris Colonials on Friday evening. UK came out in a press that will give RMU nightmares for days and it simply wore down the Colonials as the night went on. With Kentucky fresh off a defeat to No. 9 Duke on Tuesday, you kind of felt they were going use this game to get some frustration out, and boy did they ever.

Robert Morris really struggled scoring in their opener against Central Florida earlier this week, and it looked to have carried over to their matchup with the 10th-ranked Wildcats. The Colonials again had terrific ball movement early on, created some really good looks, but the shots again just weren’t falling. On the other end, UK just did not seem to miss, especially from beyond the 3 point line.

One huge advantage the Cats had over Robert Morris was in the paint, where they about doubled up the Colonials with a 46-24 advantage down low. Oscar Tshiebwe was an absolute force inside that RMU simply had no answer for all night. The West Virginia transfer who sat out last season, led the Wildcats with 20 rebounds, 10 of which came on the offensive glass. Kellen Grady led the Wildcats with 19 points in 25 minutes of action, shooting 63% from the field, 4-6 from three.

The Colonials were lead by Michael Green III in both points, 12 and minutes, 31. RMU ended the first half down 16, the game felt quite similar how their opener versus UCF went, but the Colonials really let it all get away from them in the second half. The press the Wildcats ran all night just simply wore on RMU and you could tell it was affecting both ends of the floor. Robert Morris had gotten the deficit back down to 16 and held Kentucky scoreless on 5 trips down the floor, but there was one issue; the Colonials sere only able to score one point during that stretch.

As the second half grew longer, RMU seemed to get a little careless with the basketball, with sloppy passes, not closing out, and mental lapses, all of which I firmly believe stem from being physically pushed from the opening tip. Kentucky ended the contest shooting 12-23 from three and 57% overall, which to be honest, I don’t recall them missing one let alone 11 threes. Robert Morris again struggled to score the basketball, ended shooting 7-22 from 3, 37% overall.

100-60 was the final score, and boy, was it a good old-fashioned butt whooping. Luckily for RMU, they can erase this one from the memory bank with a win tonight against Ohio University, no easy feat, as the Bobcats beat Cleveland State at the Wolstein Center on Saturday. At some point, if the Colonials keep creating good looks for themselves, shots are going to start dropping, they just need to keep fighting.

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