Aaron Bradshaw leads No. 16 Kentucky past Penn: ‘I was just having fun out there’

In a homecoming for a trio of Kentucky’s star freshmen, the Wildcats clawed past Penn in an 81-66 victory that was only rarely in doubt.

Kentucky bounced back from losing a buy game to UNC-Wilmington last Saturday thanks to its rebounding, amassing 16 second-chance points to the Quakers’ six and 10 more rebounds (41-31) than Penn.

“They [Penn] are out rebounding everybody by seven, and coming in, we have worked the last week on blocking out,” said Kentucky coach John Calipari. “We invented drills to get them to block out.

“I told [Penn coach] Steve [Donahue], I said,’ Coach, I woke up at 4 this morning worried about this game.’ Every time I watch tape, they’re making 25 threes. They’re jacking balls, they’re back-cutting, and I think we had a fairly good game plan of what we had to do.”

Saturday marked a return for forward Aaron Bradshaw (Camden) and guards DJ Wagner (Camden) and Justin Edwards (Imhotep).

A foot injury kept Bradshaw out of the Wildcats’ first seven games. He made his debut with three points in 12 minutes against UNC-Wilmington, but had his real coming-out party against Penn. Over 29 minutes off the bench, the 7-foot-1 Bradshaw posed quite the matchup problem for the Quakers and contributed 17 points, 11 rebounds, and three blocks. His 17 points contributed to the Wildcats’ stark 40-5 advantage in points off the bench.

“It was a surreal feeling to be back home with my family, and especially with my brothers playing with this team, and I was just having fun out there,” Bradshaw said.

Wagner and Edwards, meanwhile, each made meaningful contributions with nine and six points, respectively. Wagner, who appeared in his first game after suffering an ankle injury Nov. 28 against Miami, also chipped in a team-high seven assists.

“I’m just happy to be back home with my teammates, to see my family and my friends, and it felt great just to be able to play in front of those people again,” Wagner said. “And most importantly, we got the win.”

Outside of Bradshaw, freshman guard Rob Dillingham and fifth-year guard Antonio Reeves recorded 17 and 16 points, respectively.

Clark Slajchert followed his career-high 33-point outing in the Big 5 Classic with another strong performance. The senior led the way for Penn with 17 points on 8-of-14 shooting.

And just like in Penn’s last Wells Fargo Center outing, freshman guard Tyler Perkins was cold early, but heated up in the second half. After a four-point first half, Perkins scored 11 in the second and finished with 15.

Junior forward Nick Spinoso also stuffed the stat sheet for Penn, notching 10 points, nine rebounds, and five assists.

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Kentucky went into halftime up 10 following a 16-2 run toward the end of the first half. The 10-point deficit came about largely because of the Quakers’ inability to get anything going from deep.

The Quakers entered Saturday leading the Ivy League in three-point percentage, knocking down 41.5% of their deep balls. On Saturday, however, Penn made only two of 12 attempts. But coming out of the locker rooms, Penn made more threes in the first five minutes of the second half than it had the entire first. The Quakers cut their deficit to one at the 15-minute, 17-second mark on a three by Sam Brown, sending the Penn fans in the crowd of 9,007 into a frenzy.

“This group has been down a few times, and they just kind of have the right makeup and grit to come back, and I was hoping that we were ready to continue to play well through the second half,” Donahue said. “We’re not there yet. Our goal is to be there in the next 6-8 weeks and play our best basketball.”

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Penn mounted its comeback by limiting Kentucky’s ability to run the floor, keeping the Wildcats in a halfcourt offense. As the second half wore on, though, Kentucky took advantage of fast breaks to grow its lead back to a comfortable 13.

Though Penn only had five more turnovers than Kentucky, the Wildcats outpaced the Quakers, 22-5, in fast-break points. With Kentucky’s immense size advantage, the Wildcats also dominated in rebounding, grabbing 13 offensive boards to Penn’s five.

Questionable calls were handed out both ways throughout the game, especially angering Kentucky coach John Calipari. At one point he shouted at a referee about what he believed to be a blown call: “If it was my team, you would’ve saw it!”

Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey, who played one season at Kentucky, was in attendance and sat courtside, getting a big cheer when he was shown on the Jumbotron.

They say to only pick on people your own size, but Bradshaw didn’t subscribe to that notion on Saturday.

Bradshaw put the nail in the coffin of Penn’s comeback chances with a thunderous block on a player a foot shorter than him — Slajchert — leading to a three by Reeves on the other end to extend the Wildcats’ lead to 13 with 7:35 left.

Penn will return Monday in a game at the Palestra (7 p.m., ESPN+) against Howard (3-5), where it’ll face Jelani Williams, who transferred to the Bison after the 2021-22 season. Kentucky, meanwhile, will travel to face No. 9 North Carolina (7-2) next Saturday (5:30 p.m., CBS).