Kentucky (14-7 SU, 8-12-1 ATS, 5-3 SEC) travels to Oxford to take on Ole Miss (9-12 SU, 6-13-2 ATS, 1-7 SEC) on Tuesday night at 9pmET from The Sandy and John Black Pavilion at Ole Miss.
These teams met once last season with Kentucky winning 83-72 as a 16.5-point favorite.
Kentucky had won four straight games after losing at Alabama by 26 on Jan. 7 and their worst loss of the season came on Jan. 10 when they fell to South Carolina (71-68) at home as a 20-point favorite. The Wildcats showed a pulse by winning four straight games, including an impressive 63-56 road win over Tennessee as an 11-point dog on Jan. 14. But that streak came to an end when they met No. 9 Kansas on Saturday in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. They fell 77-68 at a raucous Rupp Arena and it also dropped Kentucky to 1-6 against Quad 1 opponents. Kentucky is a solid 36th in the latest NCAA Net Rankings, but they have work to do to improve their NCAA Tournament resume'.
“Unbelievable crowd, unbelievable students that were there,” UK head coach John Calipari said postgame on CatsPause.com. “You want to reward them as a coach and as a team. I want to do that. But we never stopped playing. We fought the whole time.
“Given them credit. They were physical. Their ball screen was really physical. Knocked us off point a few times.”
A bigger surprise was that they got outrebounded by five despite having one of the nation's best rebounders in Oscar Tshiebwe, who averages 13.7 rebounds and 16.6 points on 59% shooting and was held to nine boards against Kansas. The Wildcats average 75.3 points per game on 45.9% shooting and 36.2% from beyond the arc (72nd). They have issues at the free throw line (68.1%), where they rank 278th. In terms of rebounding, they rank seventh in the nation in rebounding margin (+8.9). Defensively, they are allowing 66.9 points per game on 42.6% shooting (33.7% 3pt).
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