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After fans were clamoring for Kentucky's offense to get into a rhythm following a rough showing in their three exhibition games, the Wildcats turned things on when it mattered on Tuesday in their season-opener against Manhattan. The first few minutes were slow, but Kentucky then pulled away thanks to a massive run that stretched over the last 15 minutes of the first half. a run they never looked back from.
A huge part of Kentucky's offensive success on Tuesday was none other than Milan Momcilovic, who was brought in to do exactly what he did in this one. Momcilovic put up a game-high 24 points on 8-12 shooting overall and six made threes, which is tied for the most threes by a Kentucky player in their debut. He played exactly like what everyone thought when you look at how this team can have the most success. It all revolves around the shooting and ball movement, and Momcilovic is what the offense revolves around personnel wise.
"It was great to see Milan make shots, but I think we're gonna see that all season," Pope said of Momcilovic before diving into what his shooting ability does for the entire offense. "It makes the floor really spaced out. We probably played 20 minutes offensively tonight where we were pretty good. And you just see there is so much space on the floor when our guys are really moving and they are being aggressive and physical downhill and earning power plays. He is like the sun, man. He just has so much gravity and he pulls defenders to him away from other guys on our team and makes everybody’s life easier."
Last season, Momcilovic broke program records at Iowa State with the amount of threes he made. That's 136 makes to be exact. Kentucky fans got to see why he was such a massive addition over the offseason and how much of an impact he can have on this team. As a preseason candidate for National Player of the Year, you saw why on Tuesday night.
Momcilovic started the season off with an unsurprising performance and one that is going to be repeated a lot throughout the year.
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