Kentucky responded well to 'fist fight' of a game at LSU

This Kentucky basketball responded well once again when facing major adversity, this time at LSU.

Kentucky men's basketball team after win at LSU | Photo via UK Athletics

The Kentucky Wildcats once again found themselves in a hole early on Wednesday on the road taking on the LSU Tigers. Time and time again under Mark Pope, Kentucky has been down considerable deficits. Just look at this stat. They faced adversity on Wednesday in a crucial way, because with how their season has gone, they couldn't afford to let a unique Quad 1 opportunity go to waste. Even though LSU is one of the worst in the SEC, this game was still a big one for Kentucky's resume.

They faced plenty of adversity early, but Mark Pope is proud of how his team responded to what he called a 'fist fight' of a game with Kentucky getting pushed around a lot. The Wildcats certainly struggled with it in the first half, LSU was up 6-3, but a 12-0 run quickly put Kentucky behind double digits with score 18-3, really unable to cut into the lead before taking a 16-point deficit into halftime. But, in the second half, Kentucky didn't fold. They responded to the big deficit like a team should. Kentucky did just what they did when they fell behind against Indiana, St. John's, and Mississippi State to get a 75-74 win over the Tigers.

This Kentucky basketball team didn't quit. Down by as much as 18 points early in the second half, they shrunk the deficit to seven points with 16 minutes to go on an 11-2 run, before cutting it to five with nine minutes left, then taking their first lead of the game with 3:49 left. That then set up an instant-classic finish, leading to a Malachi Moreno buzzer-beater to win it. After the win, Mark Pope talked about his team's response to the 'fist fight' of a road game against LSU.

"In the first half, we were pretty stymied. Our movement was poor. Our response to the physicality game was poor. Our guys did a great job in the second half, responding and engaging in that. It's a fist fight, like, that's what this game is, and instead of just getting knocked around and bumped off cutting lines, bumped off ball screen attacks, bumped off post catches and getting to the rim, our guys were much more forceful in the second half, and it was a change. Credit our guys for responding that way."

As we've seen multiple times since the 'Nashville debacle' as Pope put it, this Kentucky team has not folded and quit when things have gone wrong. They have gotten up and responded, showing a sense of pride of who they are and who they represent. Pope knows this is a team that's going to keep doing that no matter what. "We have some warts. We have some things we're trying to figure out. But this group is a group that's going to--they're going to stay in there. There were 15 times in the second half where we could have folded, and there were more than that in the first but they just kept hammering away."

Kentucky will look to use this big relient win, as well as the one from Saturday, as much-needed fuel moving forward. It's going to be a hard, but crucial, portion of the schedule coming up for Kentucky with four of their next games on the road, including at #24 Tennessee up next.