Kentucky’s exhibition season ended with a warning flare and a flourish.
Mark Pope’s Wildcats beat UCF 90-76 in overtime on Wednesday, but the result came with plenty of uneven stretches baked into it. UK showed a sharp ceiling, then a messy floor, then enough late-game poise to seize control once the game hit the extra period.
The finish was the cleanest part. Alex Wilkins drilled a floater at the regulation buzzer to tie it, and Kentucky rolled from there.
Milan Momcilovic, who had been the inbounder on the final play of regulation, opened overtime by scoring the first five points. The Cats then made their first five shots in OT and outclassed UCF over the final five minutes.
Momcilovic finished with 19 points, with seven of them coming in overtime. Kentucky shot 6 for 8 in the extra session, including 3 for 5 from beyond the arc and a perfect 4 for 4 at the line.
But the game had already turned strange long before that.
Kentucky led 35-30 at halftime after holding UCF to 31.3% shooting in the opening 20 minutes, and for a while it looked like the Wildcats might blow it open. A Braydon Hawthorne 3-pointer gave UK its first double-digit lead at 25-15 with 7:06 left in the half, and UCF had made only 4 of its first 20 shots to that point. The Cats were still up 35-22 with 2:59 remaining before the Knights finished the half on a 13-4 burst.
UCF’s shot profile in the first half told part of the story. The Knights were just 4 for 16 on two-point attempts, but they knocked down 6 of 16 from 3 and hit 9 of 10 free throws to stay close.
The second half brought a different problem for Kentucky. UCF got downhill repeatedly, beating the Cats off drives and dribble penetration, and UK never really solved that issue.
The Wildcats also left too many points at the stripe, missing eight free throws overall. Two of those came from Braydon Hawthorne with 9 seconds left in regulation and UCF up one, nearly swinging the game before Wilkins rescued it.
There were bright spots all over Kentucky’s box score.
Freshman Mason Williams continued to look like a player who could become one of college basketball’s surprises, scoring 18 points. Sophomore Malachi Moreno came close to a triple-double with 16 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists, and he had already matched his regular-season game high from his freshman year in assists by halftime with six. He added 10 points in the second half and two more in overtime.
Wilkins gave Kentucky a huge moment when it mattered most, but the backcourt overall was uneven. Zoom Diallo and Wilkins, starting together over Williams, combined to shoot 5 for 14. Diallo played only 10 minutes in the second half and did not appear in overtime.
Momcilovic’s shooting line was a little noisier than usual, too. The Iowa State transfer, who was the nation’s top 3-point shooter last season, went 3 for 9 from deep. That kind of night is not as unusual as it might seem; he had 13 games last season in which he hit 33% or fewer of his 3-point tries, and 18 games in which he made at least half of them.
Kentucky’s first exhibition slate is over now, and the regular season starts next week. The Wildcats open Tuesday against Manhattan at Rupp Arena in a 7 p.m. Election Day tipoff that will stream on SEC Network+.
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