Kentucky defeats No. 22 St. John's in Jayden Quaintance's debut

Ben Roberts, Lexington Herald-Leader on Dec 20, 2025

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ATLANTA — An eventful afternoon for the Kentucky men’s basketball team ended with a victory Saturday in State Farm Arena.

Mark Pope’s Wildcats defeated Rick Pitino’s No. 22 Red Storm 78-66 in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta.

In addition to the much-anticipated battle between Pitino and Pope — the head coach and co-captain, respectively, of UK’s 1996 national championship team — the Wildcats temporarily lost top point guard Jaland Lowe to injury, and projected NBA lottery pick Jayden Quaintance made his Kentucky basketball debut.

Lowe, who initially suffered a right shoulder injury during UK’s Blue-White Game in October and then re-injured the same shoulder during a Nov. 13 practice session, was on the court for only seven seconds Saturday before leaving the floor clutching his right shoulder again.

The junior guard walked off the court and headed straight to the UK locker room with 16:11 left in the first half. He did not return to the bench in the first half but did reappear out of the halftime locker room and checked back into the game with 17:07 remaining.

Lowe had 13 points, three rebounds and three assists, with all of that coming in the second half.

About a minute after Lowe left with the injury, Quaintance checked into the game, making his first appearance as a Kentucky Wildcat coming out of the first TV timeout of the afternoon. Quaintance, who is projected as a top-10 pick in the 2026 NBA draft, suffered a torn ACL in February as a freshman at Arizona State. He had surgery for that injury on March 19.

Quaintance made an instant impact for the Cats — hitting a fadeaway jumper on his first offensive possession and blocking a shot on the other end a short time later — but the 6-foot-10 forward made a real mark in the second half, playing a physical style and coming up with several key buckets, rebounds and defensive plays down the stretch.

He finished with 10 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in 17 minutes on the court.

Otega Oweh led the Wildcats with 20 points. He also had five rebounds and three steals.

The Kentucky-St. John’s game was expected to be ugly, and it certainly started that way. There were a total of 22 fouls in the first half, and the Wildcats committed 11 turnovers before halftime. Neither team shot better than 40% from the field in the first half. St. John’s led 32-25 at the break.

The Cats, who trailed by as many as 10 points in the first half, went on a 14-0 run early in the second half, a stretch that began with a basket from Quaintance and ended with a 3-pointer by Kam Williams to put Kentucky ahead 53-42 with 10:48 left.

The 14-0 run featured two buckets from Quaintance, two more from Lowe and a pair of 3-pointers courtesy of Williams, whose shot to put UK up 47-43 was just the second long-range make of the day for the Wildcats, who started the game at 1 for 10 from the perimeter. Williams finished with 11 points.

While UK did put St. John’s on the free-throw line for 17 attempts after halftime, the Cats held the Johnnies without a field goal for 8:53 in the second half. Pitino’s team missed seven consecutive shots in that span. St. John’s shot 33.3% from the field for the game.

The Cats went through a drought of nearly five minutes themselves before Quaintance ended that with dunks on back-to-back possessions. The second one gave UK a 65-53 lead with 4:02 left. St. John’s never got back within single digits.

Kentucky was called for 12 fouls in the first half and picked up its seventh team foul of the second half with 14:23 remaining, putting St. John’s in the bonus the rest of the way.

The Red Storm were 27 for 32 on free throws. The Cats were 18 for 22 from the line.

Kentucky improved to 8-4 on the season and scored its first victory over a ranked team. The Cats were 0-4 against Top 25 competition coming into this one. St. John’s dropped to 7-4.

Kentucky will have one more nonconference game — a matchup with Bellarmine in Rupp Arena on Tuesday afternoon — before getting a week and a half off before SEC play begins at Alabama on Jan. 3.

The UK-Bellarmine game is set for 1 p.m. ET Tuesday on SEC Network+.

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