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Playing his final season of college basketball, Jalen Tate had one opportunity to play close to home and he made it count.
The Pickerington, Ohio, native and Northern Kentucky graduate transfer made sure the thank the 25 friends and family who made the short trip to Lexington, Ky., to watch him play after Arkansas’ 81-80 win over Kentucky on Tuesday.
“They know how much it means to me being 12 hours from home,” Tate said. “Since I committed to Arkansas, everybody has been trying to get tickets to this game. It's a blessing that I was allowed to get everybody tickets that wanted to come to the game."
The three-hour trip was worth it, as they saw Tate score 11 of his team-high 15 points in the second half. He shot 50 percent (5 of 10) from the floor and was a perfect 5 of 5 at the charity stripe.
None of his points were bigger than his last two. With the Razorbacks down by one, Tate grabbed an offensive board and was fouled on a put back attempt, sending him to the free throw line with 4.3 seconds remaining.
After making the first one to tie the game at 80-80, Kentucky called a timeout that actually benefitted him, according to head coach Eric Musselman, instead of icing him.
“That is a tremendous, tremendous amount of pressure, for somebody to step in and make those shots,” Musselman said. “A timeout was called, where he’s got more time to think about it (and) I actually think that was good. I think he got to catch his breath a second.”
If Tate felt the pressure of the moment, it didn’t show in the huddle. Despite being a career 61.8 percent free throw shooter, he told his teammates during the timeout that “when” he made the second shot, they needed to be sure to get into a prevent defense to keep Kentucky from answering at the buzzer.
“You’ve got to speak it into existence,” Tate said. “You’ve got to have that confidence in yourself so everybody else has the confidence in you and they realize, like, ‘Look, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to get into prevent, we’re going to make sure nobody gets behind us, and we’re going to make them make a tough play over us. Game’s not over yet.’”
Sure enough, Tate calmly knocked down the shot to give Arkansas a one-point lead and the Wildcats never got another shot attempt. Their pass was intercepted by Davonte Davis just past half court, sealing the victory for Arkansas and fulfilling what the freshman had told Tate minutes earlier.
“Before he shot his first (free throw) I told him, ‘You’ve been in this position before,’” Davis said. “He got a couple rings at his old school, so I told him to go up there, knock them down and the rest, just leave it to me.”
Certainly delivering in the clutch for a win over a program like Kentucky - when though it is struggling this season - with so many friends and family looking on was an awesome moment for Tate, but he made sure to correct a reporter after the game who called him the “hero” of the game.
“Man, I'm no hero,” Tate said. “I’m a guy that goes to work every day.”
Here are a few other notes, tidbits and stats from Arkansas’ win Tuesday night…
Blaming the Refs
The Razorbacks’ victory didn’t come without controversy. The announcers on ESPN initially didn’t think there was enough to call a foul on Tate’s put back attempt, but replays appeared to show contact.
However, Kentucky star freshman B.J. Boston clearly wasn’t happy about the call during postgame interviews.
"I think the refs gave them that game,” Boston said bluntly.
Layup Efficiency
It is no secret that Arkansas has struggled to finish at the rim this season. That has plagued the Razorbacks all year and has only gotten worse against SEC competition.
Coming into the Kentucky game, they had made only 44.9 percent of their layups in conference play, according to the StatBroadcast system, which was dead last in the SEC.
On Tuesday, though, Arkansas was an efficient 11 of 14. Not only is that well above its average, but it’s also just the fifth time in 11 conference games that Arkansas has made at least half of its layups.
