Recap of Men’s Basketball Exhibition Games

With the two exhibition games on the Kentucky Wildcats Men’s basketball team schedule having been played, the Cats find themselves prepping for their first regular season game, against the Grand Canyon Antelopes.
But first, a quick recap of both of the first two exhibition wins for the Wildcats.
The first exhibition game pitted Kentucky against the Bears from the University of Pikeville.  Pikeville came out strong in this one, putting up a strong showing in the first few minutes of the game, leaving the highly touted Wildcats at bay, only leading by eight point with 9:52 left in the first half.
But after the two platoons had each played their first set of minutes, the overall talent of the Wildcats took over, ending the half on a 31-12 run.
The second half was more of the same as the Cats continued to pour it on the overmatched Bears, and coasted to an easy 116-68 victory.  Kentucky was led by 22 points, five rebounds and three blocks from freshman center Karl Anthony-Towns, Dakari Johnson’s 13 point-eight rebound performance and a solid 16 points and three assists from Devin Booker.  Andrew Harrison also had a good game distributing the ball, finishing with nine assists to go alongside five points and four rebounds.
UPike was led by a huge game from K.K. Simmons who had a game high 28 points, shooting 6 of 9 from three-point land.  Kenny Manigault also played well, scoring 13 points and pulling down six boards.
Here are the highlights from the Wildcat victory, courtesy of Kentucky Wildcats TV:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UmySrm4zWk]
The second exhibition game for the Wildcats put them up against the Georgetown College Tigers.
The starting platoon started slow in this game, as the score was only 5-2 when the first round of substitutions were made; however, after that, the Wildcats never looked back.  Platoon #2 went on a quick 11-5 run upon entering the game and the score at halftime already had Kentucky beating the Tigers by a substantial margin of 36, with the score being 60-24.
The second half turned into a dunk-fest for the Kentucky Wildcats, as they piled up big slams and alley-oops on what seemed like every other play on their way to a 121-52 victory over Georgetown College.  A 69 point victory, paired with the 48 point win over Pikeville, gave the Cats a total margin of victory of 117 over just two games.
The Wildcats were led by Aaron Harrison’s 17 points, five assists and four rebounds, Dakar Johnson’s 12 points and 10 rebounds, Willie Cauley-Stein’s 12 points, six rebounds and 3 blocks, and Karl Anthony-Towns 13 point-eight rebound performance.
As for the Tigers from Georgetown, they were led by 16 points and five rebounds from Deondre McWhorter, as well as 11 points and five rebounds from Corey Washburn.
Here are the highlights from UK’s final exhibition game versus the Georgetown College Tigers:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF11avYggvk]
The Wildcats start their regular season this Friday night against the Grand Canyon University Antelopes at 8pm in Rupp Arena.  The game will be televised on the SEC-Network and streaming online on ESPN3.