Denzel Aberdeen was 'sick as could be' going into Auburn game

Ahead of Saturday’s game against Auburn, Kentucky guard Denzel Aberdeen was listed as probable on Friday night’s Availability Report. We now know why.

“Denzel hasn’t practiced in two days and was sick as could be and just was courageous out there, “Head coach Mark Pope told Tom Leach on postgame radio. “Giving us the best he could.”

Aberdeen ended up playing 38 minutes, tying his career high, in the Wildcats’ crushing 76-75 loss to Auburn. He chipped in 15 points (5-14 FG) and three assists along the way while being primarily tasked with defending the Tigers’ second-leading scorer, Tahaad Pettiford (15 PPG), who finished with nine points on 2-9 shooting.

It wasn’t the most efficient offensive performance from Aberdeen, but he was a big reason why Kentucky was in a position to beat Auburn down the stretch. His three-pointer with 3:14 left in regulation cut the Tigers’ lead down to three. A pair of clutch free throws with 18 seconds to go gave UK a three-point edge, an advantage that should have led to the win before the controversial ending.

Aberdeen joined Otega Oweh (35 minutes) and Mo Dioubate (30 minutes) as fellow Wildcats who hit the 30-minute threshold. It marked the fourth straight game Aberdeen logged 30 or more minutes and the seventh in a row for Oweh, who still managed to pour in a career-high 29 points.

Get the On3 Top 10 Newsletter in your inbox every morning

By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.

But Kentucky needed even more, especially during scoring droughts in the second half. Pope has mentioned recently wanting to cut down guys’ minutes in hopes of avoiding those cold stretches. He believes that played a role again in the loss to Auburn.

“We had so much fatigue on the floor,” Pope told Leach. “It’s something we’ve been trying to monitor. So much of our offense is based on movement and pace and the next part of the action. It was just fatigue. There was just a lot of fatigue. And so we’re trying to manage it with our limited roster. We got to have a couple other guys step up and play a little bit more minutes for us. But it was just straight up fatigue.”

Fatigued or not, Kentucky still had multiple chances to beat Auburn down the stretch. They just couldn’t execute well enough in the closing minutes.