CRAWFORD | Kentucky stopped the skid, not the questions, in 72-63 win at South Carolina

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky arrived in Columbia carrying baggage: three straight losses, a last-second gut punch at Auburn and a $25,000 Mark Pope invoice from the Southeastern Conference that might as well have come stamped “Keep Quiet.”

So this was supposed to be the night the Wildcats got well.

Instead, they got by.

They beat South Carolina, 72-63. They did what they were supposed to do, if not exactly the way they wanted to do it.

For long stretches, the Wildcats played as if they had been instructed not to break anything valuable. The offense sputtered, the shots came heavy, and the rhythm never checked in.

When Otega Oweh, Kentucky’s reliable metronome, misfired again and again, the effect was less surprise than confirmation. This was a team still searching for the version of itself it remembered from earlier in the season.

South Carolina tied the game at 48–48 with a little more than eight minutes left, and the Colonial Life Arena didn’t roar so much as lean forward, perhaps because half of them were Kentucky fans.

This was the part where Kentucky’s recent history suggested something unpleasant might happen.

Instead, nothing dramatic happened at all, which, for the Wildcats, counts as progress.

They strung together a modest run, then another. No big flourish. No celebration. Just movement, finally, in the correct direction.

Denzel Aberdeen supplied the sparks, finishing with 19 points and shooting Kentucky into the first half lead with three straight three-pointers after South Carolina had opened hot. Mouhamed Dioubate defended like someone determined to keep the evening from unraveling again, and finished with 12 points. Malachi Moreno vacuumed rebounds as if they might otherwise be repossessed. Kentucky dominated the glass, 48-28.

But overall, it wasn’t dominance. It was maintenance.

By the final minute, the outcome was no longer in doubt, which allowed everyone involved to pretend this had gone according to plan. The Wildcats had stopped the losing streak. The standings would reflect a victory. The plane ride home will be smoother.

Oweh, who had scored in double-digits in 30 straight games, finished with only eight on 3-for-13 shooting. Kentucky’s ability to win without him carrying him could be seen as a bright spot.

But if triumph has a sound, this wasn’t it. This was relief.

Mark Pope, fined and fussed over and scrutinized, will gladly take it. Coaches do not frame victories according to aesthetic value. They frame them according to whether the number in the loss column changed.

Still, even as Kentucky closed the game out, there was little of the bounce or swagger that once defined the Wildcats’ better nights.

Perhaps that will return. Confidence is a fickle tenant, but it rarely moves out permanently.

For one night, though, Kentucky didn’t look like a team charging toward March. It looked like a team carefully stepping around puddles, hoping not to slip again.

The losing streak is over. The turbulence may not be. The Wildcats face tough home games against Vanderbilt and Florida sandwiched around a trip to Texas A&M to finish the season.

Kentucky didn’t cure anything in Columbia. But it did make sure nothing got worse.