The Kentucky Wildcats cruised through the SEC all year, and put a cap on another dominant conference season with a 82-65 win over Arkansas, marking UK's third straight SEC Tournament championship. It's the first time a team has won three straight SEC Tournament titles since Florida in 2005-2007.
Kentucky, led by star guards De'Aaron Fox (18 points) and Malik Monk (17 points), trailed for a total of 70 seconds in this one, all of which came in the first 11 minutes. After that, the Wildcats reeled off a 31-14 run that stretched into the second half, with this huge dunk from Monk serving as the exclamation point.
Malik Monk throws it DOWN! pic.twitter.com/aNyIOZDQ5C
— ESPN College BBall (@ESPNCBB) March 12, 2017
From there, Arkansas was never able to cut the deficit to anything less than nine points with a late run, and never really threatened to take the game. However, it did get chippy late when Arkansas' Moses Kingsley hit Fox in the face with a minute to play.
rpmsports18: Chippy ESPN College Basketball Live Scoreboard https://t.co/e0ubhuxeKC pic.twitter.com/INWJLgcMUP
— FanSportsClips (@FanSportsClips) March 12, 2017
Kingsley received a Flagrant 2 foul and was ejected.
Along with Fox and Monk's excellent performances, Bam Adebayo had 17 points and eight rebounds to lead Kentucky. They also got a big boost off the bench from senior Dominique Hawkins, who contributed 12 points.
Junior Daryl Macon came off the bench to lead Arkansas with 18 points, while Dusty Hannahs (14 points) and Jaylen Barford (13 points) were the only Razorbacks starters in double figures.
Kentucky is currently projected to be the No. 2 seed in the South Region in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN's Joe Lunardi, who also projects Arkansas to be the No. 9 seed in the East.
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