Monk goes off, Fox hurt in UK's win over S.C.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky and South Carolina competed for the top spot in the Southeastern Conference without two of the best players in the country on Saturday at Rupp Arena.

The No. 5 Wildcats, once again, asserted their claim as kings of the league, paced by Malik Monk's 27 points in the 85-69 victory over the No. 24 Gamecocks (15-4, 5-1).

"It is hard to be at your best every game, and if you're not, you get beat," UK coach John Calipari said. "... My job is to get (the players) to come together, their job is to be responsible for themselves."

Kentucky (17-2, 7-0) played without point guard De'Aaron Fox for most of the game after he injured his right ankle early in the first half, and South Carolina was without starting sophomore guard, PJ Dozier, who was ruled out with back spasms.

Senior Sindarius Thornwell was the only Gamecocks player to score in double figures, notching a season-high 34 points, mostly with drives to the basket and sinking 14 free throws.

"Sin is a winner," South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. "He loves the big stage, he loves to compete, he loves to play."

A contender for national and conference player of the year, Fox left the game after draining his first three shot attempts for six points in eight minutes. He changed shoes and briefly returned and then checked out for good and went to the locker room for the rest of the opening half and watched from the bench in the second.

"It may be a stinger," Calipari said. "Something hit his ankle, he is in a boot and they said there is no swelling."

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The Wildcats were also without guard Mychal Mulder (day-to-day with illness), but they still had the top scorer in the conference and even South Carolina's top-ranked defense couldn't stop him.

Monk reached 20-plus points for the 11th time this season, and Kentucky shot better than 50 percent (58.3, 28-48) for the seventh consecutive game, the longest such streak since the 1983-84 season.

"One thing about us, we’ve been pretty good at taking people’s leading scorers and holding them down," Martin said. "We didn’t do a very good job on Monk."

The Wildcats needed time to settle down after Fox went out for good and their 17-point lead was cut to three, 30-27 with 4:51 to play in the first half.

"We just had to calm down," senior guard Dominque Hawkins said. Hawkins took over at point guard and helped Kentucky's re-establish control. He finished with five points and seven assists in 28 minutes.

"Dom always does that for us when we need him," Monk said.

Bam Adebayo finished with 18 points, Derek Willis added 12 and Wenyen Gabriel had 11. Sophomore guard Isaiah Briscoe was held scoreless for the first time in his career and committed a career-high seven turnovers.

"He had no points today," Calipari said. "Come on. He backs into points. He had nothing today. That's okay. We still won and he was happy as heck in there, but there's a concern for him."

South Carolina entered as the No. 1-rated team nationally in defensive efficiency and had allowed 70-plus points only twice. It was Kentucky though, that clamped down in the second half to remain undefeated in conference play. South Carolina hit only 33 percent of its shots in the second half and was 5 of 20 from beyond the arc for the game.