Victoria Dunlap got chills as she pondered the question.

How good can this No. 20 Kentucky team be?

"I don't even know," the junior forward said. "We have good nights, but we still miss little chip shots, free throws, we turn the ball over.

"It's mind blowing to see that we're winning games and we can still get better."

UK didn't have its best night, but it was still a great night for the Cats, who topped Mississippi 80-66 on Thursday night.

Dunlap's coach, Matthew Mitchell, doesn't know how good his team can be either, but he knows it's playing well right now, winning its sixth consecutive Southeastern Conference game and its 15th straight in Memorial Coliseum.

"Tonight was a huge win for us," he said. "We just have to make certain that we stay true to who we are and stay true to our identity — stay humble and hungry — and if we'll do that, we have a chance to have a good season."

That identity in Mitchell's mind is a team that works hard and plays tough defense.

That was certainly its modus operandi Thursday night as it held the conference's second-best offensive team to 28 points in the first half on 23.3 percent shooting.

"We made it difficult on them to get into offense," Mitchell said.

In one span in the first half, UK held the Rebels without a field goal for more than five minutes as it strung together a 14-2 run.

"Their pressure affected us greatly," Coach Renee Ladner said of Kentucky (19-3, 7-2 SEC). "It affected our ability to take shots, our shots. ... I thought we'd be able to handle that a little bit better."

She said point guard Kayla Melson did her best against UK's relentless pressure, but "she just didn't have anyone to fight with her."

Melson had 20 points to lead the Rebels, who lost their third straight since upsetting Georgia at Athens.

The SEC's leading scorer, Bianca Thomas, added 17 points. She made just four of 19 shots.

Part of that was the defense of freshman A'dia Mathies, who was guarding Thomas most of the night.

Mathies didn't just do it on defense, she did it on offense, too, scoring a career-best 21 points.

When asked after the game about how she played, Mathies kept it short and sweet.

"My shots were falling and I was making some good plays," she said.

Ladner answered it even more simply.

"The Mathies kid is for real," she said of the reigning Kentucky Miss Basketball, who had seven rebounds and two steals.

Dunlap added 18 points, seven rebounds and three steals. Former Lexington Catholic standout Keyla Snowden scored 10 points in six minutes.

Rebecca Gray and Amani Franklin each added nine points for UK, whose bench outscored the Rebels' 23-9.

The Cats made 45 percent of their shots and held Mississippi (14-8, 5-4) to 32.2 percent shooting.

Midway through the second half, Kentucky felt a challenge coming on as Mississippi pulled within 14 points. Then the Wildcats used an 11-2 run to extend the lead to as much as 23 points.

UK didn't necessarily finish the game as strong as it would have liked, but Mitchell was pleased nonetheless.

"Anytime you get a win like this in the SEC, you're happy," he said.

He told them before the game, as he does before every game, to keep doing the little things well.

Mitchell said he worries sometimes that the message might be getting a little monotonous.

His players don't think so.

"It's good that he's telling us those things because if not ... we might settle for being the team we were," Dunlap said.

Watkins playing hurt

Senior forward Lydia Watkins has been battling some discomfort in her knee and back, and Mitchell said he sat her (she played two minutes) because he could.

"I'm glad we were able to play her not many minutes," he said. "Lydia's the type of kid that when she's hurting, she's not going to tell you. ... I could sense early on that she wasn't full speed."