Oscar Tshiebwe scored 12 straight points early in the second half to put No. 16 Kentucky ahead for good and finished with a season-high 28 points in a 69-59 nonconference win over Yale in Lexington, Ky.
Tshiebwe ended the day just two shy of his career high, set last year. He was 13 of 18 from the field and added 12 rebounds to help the Wildcats improve to 7-2. Antonio Reeves and Sahvir Wheeler each chipped in 10 points.
Jack Molloy scored 14 points for the Bulldogs (8-3), who dropped their second straight game. EJ Jarvis added 12 and August Mahoney tallied 10, but it wasn’t enough to help Yale score a big road victory.
The Bulldogs gave it a good shot for better than 30 minutes, matching Kentucky shot for shot and rebound for rebound. They actually scored the first eight points of the second half, taking a 35-33 lead when Molloy fed John Poulakidas on a back cut for a layup.
But Tshiebwe took over from there. Beginning with a layup at the 17:24 mark, he accounted for 12 consecutive points in under four minutes which gave Kentucky a 45-40 lead. The lead gradually grew to as many as 15 points down the stretch.
Most of the first half was controlled by Kentucky as it was able to get the shots it wanted while forcing Yale into long, inaccurate shots. Cason Wallace and Reeves combined to can three straight 3s in a 2:07 span to establish a 15-6 lead.
The margin grew to 23-11 with 11:27 left on a fast-break layup by Chris Livingston before the Bulldogs started working their way back into the game. Starting with Jarvis’ layup, they had their way over the final 10 1/2 minutes of the half.
Holding the Wildcats to eight points in that span, Yale drew within three at one stage on a transition layup by Bez Mbeng. Kentucky went back up by eight before Mahoney made a jumper that made it a 33-27 game at halftime.
–Field Level Media