3 risers and 1 faller from Kentucky’s win over Mount St. Mary’s

The No. 13 Kentucky Wildcats won their second game of the season last night with an 80-55 win over Mount St. Mary’s.

After a sluggish start, the Wildcats took a double-digit lead into halftime and then blew it open during the second half thanks to an 18-0 run.

Here are a couple of trends following Kentucky’s third game of the year

Risers

Oscar Tshiebwe: Who could have predicted the level of production Kentucky has gotten out of Tshiebwe three games into the year? We knew the potential based on his time in Morgantown, but his play has been phenomenal so far. He continued that trend with his best offensive game of the season with 24 points on 11/14 shooting. It wasn’t just putbacks and dunks either as he hit a couple of midrange jumpers. That’s not to mention his 16 rebounds and three blocks either. He’s been historic in Kentucky’s early season, and he’s quickly becoming one of the biggest UK fan-favorites in recent memory. He really is a machine.

Keion Brooks: Brooks had his most productive game of the season with 10 points and seven rebounds. He tends to lean too heavily on his jumper which led him to the bench early on, but he made multiple drives through the rest of the game that had a nice combination of both power and touch. Brooks has the versatility to do all that’s asked of him on the court and on night’s like last night when he focuses on what he does best, he can be a big contributor.

TyTy Washington: Washington ramped it up again with his best performance thus far in his young career with 16 points on 7/12 shooting, including his first threes of the year as he finished 2-3 from behind the arc. Washington had some opportunity at point guard with mixed results, but the scoring touch is getting there like it was always going to. The more confidence he can build, the better off the Wildcats will be in the long run with him as a potential go to scorer as the season continues on.

Fallers

Bench Unit: For all the big moments in the game against Robert Morris, bench production was completely missing in action last night across the board for UK. Davion Mintz followed up his 13-point game with 0 points on 0.3 shooting against Mount St. Mary’s. Daimion Collins followed up his 14-point, six rebound, and four-block highlight tape of a game with just two points, two rebounds and a block. Dontaie Allen and Bryce Hopkins were a combined 1/7 as well. With all due respect to Zan Payne, his four garbage time points in the last minute or so made him the leading scorer off the bench. Performances like this can slide early on in the year, especially when the starting unit plays as well as they did, but this was pretty alarming considering the opportunity each of them had throughout the game and even after the game was in hand.

So, who was your biggest riser/faller from this game? Let us know in the comments section!