{"id":577385,"date":"2026-02-02T13:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/577385\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T13:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:57:14","slug":"trent-noah-felt-the-rims-were-seven-feet-wide-but-helped-beat-arkansas-with-great-physicality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/577385\/","title":{"rendered":"Trent Noah felt the rims were ‘seven-feet wide’ – but helped beat Arkansas with ‘great physicality’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There wasn\u2019t a spot in the rotation for Trent Noah<\/a> transitioning out of the non-conference and into the SEC schedule, combining for 19 total minutes against high-major competition dating back to the Indiana win on December 13. The sophomore forward was a DNP at Alabama, vs. Missouri and Mississippi State and at LSU before registering five combined minutes at Tennessee and vs. Texas.<\/p>\n

When Kam Williams went down with a broken foot against the Longhorns, though, Noah had no choice but to step up as a consistent contributor. He was going to be leaned on heavily as a shooter with the hope that he could give the Wildcats something as a defender and rebounder.<\/p>\n

Since then, he\u2019s knocked down a 3-pointer in three straight matchups for the Wildcats<\/a> while earning double-figure minutes in all three. He drilled his lone attempt from deep in the team\u2019s most recent victory in Fayetteville. That wasn\u2019t a surprise to anyone in that locker room \u2014 especially those who saw him at shootaround at Bud Walton Arena earlier Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we came to the gym this morning \u2014 sometimes you see guys\u2019 eyes light up and it looked like Trent thought the rims literally were like seven-feet wide. Did you guys feel that from him?\u201d Mark Pope <\/a>told KSR, gesturing to the Wildcats to his side at the podium. <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTrent was feeling good, for sure,\u201d Otega Oweh responded.<\/p>\n

That single shot was impressive, but not the most valuable production he brought to the table, especially considering how it was all set up for the Mountain Mamba. Fellow Kentuckian Jasper Johnson got the first opportunity off the bench, but picked up two fouls in four seconds, putting Noah on the floor at the 13:32 mark. <\/p>\n

12 seconds later, he snagged his first rebound, leading to an and-one dunk for Oweh on the other end. The next defensive possession? Another rebound, leading to a pull-up 3-pointer for Denzel Aberdeen to put Kentucky up 13 at the 12:41 mark \u2014 the largest lead of the game. Both boards were tough 50-50 balls, which he decided to make 100-0 balls.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t name-drop Noah specifically \u2014 and he wasn\u2019t the only one \u2014 but he did say those toss-ups were game-changers in the first half for the Wildcats. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe won most of them,\u201d Pope said of the 50-50 opportunities. \u201cSome of that\u2019s good fortune, and some of it is our guys being loose enough and intense enough to go get them. Those 50-50 balls we won in the first half were massively important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noah would finish with a career-high seven rebounds in 19 minutes. He\u2019d also come up with some clutch makes at the free-throw line, finishing 6-8 from there \u2014 all in the second half. It was arguably the most impactful performance of his young Kentucky career, only his Knoxville breakthrough when he finished with 11 points on 3-4 from three coming close.<\/p>\n

Pope made it clear he has faith in Noah to pick up where Kam Williams left off immediately following the injury. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe actually is going to help us win.\u00a0He\u2019s a really \u2014 he started games for us!\u00a0He\u2019s a really good player,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cHe\u2019s going to get more minutes\u00a0and he\u2019s going to be really great.\u00a0He\u2019s going to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not even two weeks later, Noah helped the Wildcats win in Fayetteville.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrent\u2019s got a great physicality about him, and he\u2019s a great ball protection guy, and he was great on the glass for us tonight. We talk about \u2018clean 15\u2019 is one of our concepts on the glass, and he was huge. He had two big defensive rebounds early in his first rotation, and we kind of felt like, \u2018Oh, he feels right.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The 606 won\u2019t argue that point \u2014 it certainly felt right to our friends in Eastern Kentucky, too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There wasn\u2019t a spot in the rotation for Trent Noah transitioning out of the non-conference and into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,4000,21925],"class_list":{"0":"post-577385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kentucky-basketball","10":"tag-trent-noah-24-harlan"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116001390235770428","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}