Malachi Moreno hits game-winner as Kentucky escapes with win at LSU

The Kentucky Wildcats went down to Baton Rouge on Wednesday to take on the LSU Tigers in a unique Quad 1 opportunity against a team without their best player, searching to find similar success to what they found on Saturday in their 24-point win over Mississippi State, with great offensive flow, pace, and spacing, including defense turning into offense. It was a classic one down in Baton Rouge with a tale of two halves. Kentucky used a bad first half as fuel, storming back from down as much as 18, before Malachi Moreno hit the game-winning shot for Kentucky.

MALACHI MORENO FOR THE WIN 😼😼😼😼😼😼😼 pic.twitter.com/6fXGVwMNBA
— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) January 15, 2026

Let's recap it all, shall we? Things got out of hand very quickly, and couldn't have started out worse. Kentucky fans saw what they have seen many times this season, and that's an offense that executed poorly, with minimal ball-movement, and LSU was ready for everything the Wildcats had to offer. Kentucky started out as bad as they could have, It was slow scoring at first, but after the first TV timeout, things went south fast. LSU was up 6-3, but a 12-0 run quickly put Kentucky behind double digits 18-3, really unable to cut into the lead before taking a 16-point deficit into halftime. It was very ugly, as Kentucky digged themselves a hole early, like a number of games this season, even going on a seven minute scoring drought. The offense was clearly back to being stagnant, as they shot just 8-30 in the entire first half. But, the second half was different.

Think things got better in the second half like we have seen a couple of times this season? Yep. It nearly ended in heartbreaking fashion fter once again climbing back, but this time, not falling short. Kentucky never led in the entire first half, but 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, providing fans hope like they have multiple times this season. It came down to the wire, as Otega Oweh had a chance to tie it with just seconds left, but went one of two, before LSU then missing both of theirs with a one-point lead with one second left. Then, Malachi Moreno saved the day, hitting the game-winning jumpshot as the buzzer went off. This game tied the largest comeback of the Mark Pope era, 18 points.

Kentucky is now 11-6 on the season and 2-2 in SEC play. Up next, a huge opportunity on the road against Tennessee. The Wildcats escape what looked for a long time to be an embarrassing loss with a win after a terrific second-half effort, as they climbed back for an important win for their season.