Kentucky's frontcourt helped overcome Otega Oweh's single-digit performance

Kentucky’s frontcourt had not met expectations in the Wildcats’ previous two losses coming into Tuesday night. In close defeats to Georgia and Auburn, the UK bigs did not make the impact needed to pull out wins. Those shortcomings negated the fact that Otega Oweh dropped 28 points against the Bulldogs, followed by 29 more against the Tigers.

The quartet of Malachi Moreno, Andrija Jelavić, Mo Dioubate, and Brandon Garrison combined to score 20 points against Auburn and only 13 against Georgia. None of them scored more than seven points each in either of those losses. For comparison, that group combined to score 27 points in the loss to Florida and 22 in the win against Tennessee in the two games before — teams with arguably the biggest frontcourts in the country.

But those four showed up on the road against a smaller South Carolina team. They combined for 34 points to punish the Gamecocks inside, with Dioubate and Jelavić recording 12 and 11 points, respectively. It was the most points Dioubate has scored in SEC play and tied a season-high for Jelavić. Moreno’s eight points and 11 rebounds were just the third time this season he’s hit those marks. Garrison even grabbed seven rebounds for just the fourth time all season

That was part of Lamont Paris’ gameplan, too. He wanted anyone other than Oweh to beat his team. He succeeded in that regard. Oweh finished with a season-low eight points on 3-13 shooting to go along with a trio of turnovers. But that left the door open for big games from his teammates.

“I was really happy with the execution of the gameplan and what we did on (Oweh),” Paris said postgame. “He’s not an easy guy to do a good job on because he’s so physical, he forces the action, he’s strong, and he can make you foul him.”

It wasn’t just the scoring from Kentucky’s bigs that helped overcome Oweh’s subpar showing, though. The Wildcats dominated the glass, grabbing 48 rebounds compared to South Carolina’s 28. UK’s four-man frontcourt group hauled in 25 of those boards, including 13 of the team’s season-high-tying 18 offensive rebounds. Those extra opportunities led to a 14-4 edge in second-chance points in a game that was decided by nine points. Kentucky won the points in the paint battle 34-20.

Good things tend to happen for the Wildcats when the bigs play well. UK is 5-0 this season when Dioubate scores at least a dozen points and 6-0 when Jelavić drops in eight or more. They’re 9-1 when Moreno hits the 10-point mark. If the frontcourt can match the expected production of the backcourt, Kentucky will look more like the team that won eight of nine SEC games earlier in the season.