If there's anything extraordinary, it's that Kentucky's practice seems rather ordinary.

The Saturday afternoon practice at Memorial Coliseum has the same aggressive tempo, the same frenetic energy, and the same high level of enthusiasm as a Cats practice a month ago.

That's when UK was flying high atop the Southeastern Conference.

But even though the seventh-ranked Wildcats have lost three straight games — most recently at Alabama, a team that has lived in the basement of the SEC for several seasons — UK's practice remains the same.

The losses at Louisiana State, at Tennessee and even this one at Alabama are in the past.

That's Coach Matthew Mitchell's message to his team.

"There's not a thing we can do about those," Mitchell said as he sat in the Memorial Coliseum stands after practice on Saturday. "All we can do is get this one Monday. And if we get this one Monday, it's a huge win."

This one Monday is against a surging Vanderbilt team that has won six of its last seven, including an overtime victory over Florida on Thursday night.

Maybe Mitchell should be screaming at his team, berating its recent poor play, but he doesn't think that's going to be the answer for the Cats, who are a half-game behind UT for first place in the conference with three games left to play.

"I try to stay honest with them without being overly negative," he said of UK, which has an 18-game home win streak and is 45-2 in Lexington in the past three seasons.

"They need me to show them the way out of this (slump)," he said. "And you're not going to show them the way out if you're telling them they're not worth anything."

But the coach doesn't want to leave the impression that he's being soft on his team or that the Cats don't feel badly for how they "completely shut down for 12 minutes" at Alabama.

"It was a terrible, terrible loss," he said of the 77-75 loss in Tuscaloosa on Thursday. "I have to remind myself about every half hour to not go there because it's sickening if you really start thinking about it."

If he does allow himself to go there, it won't be good for his team, Mitchell said.

"Right now, you just can't worry about why, you've just got to move forward," he said. "You can't run away from what we've been good at."

So the practice on Saturday looked like any other practice. A morning session had the usual defensive fundamental drills and the one in the afternoon was spirited and intense.

"We went at it this morning," he said. "We had a knock-down, drag-out fundamentals session and they went at it. They got better and I could see it this afternoon."

He thinks his team has learned that it can't let poor offensive play affect its defensive performance, which seems to be the common thread in each of these three losses.

"It's hard. It seems like the world's going to end," he said of the three-game slide. "It seems like you're never going to win another game. But you just can't go there."

Early in the game at Alabama, UK's players weren't shooting, they were throwing the ball toward the sky and "just praying the ball would go in," he said.

When it didn't, the Cats seemed to curl up in the fetal position.

"We completely shut down for 12 minutes," he said. "But we played a lot harder in the second half.

"We got to feeling sorry for ourselves at Alabama and then it was too late. So it was a good lesson to learn."

It gave him hope that the Kentucky that will take the floor on Monday night in a nationally televised game will be the same Kentucky that won 10 straight to start SEC play.

If UK (21-5, 10-3 SEC) plays that way against the Commodores, a win seems possible.

Vandy (20-6, 8-5) has been playing well as of late, including a recent throttling of Tennessee, but the Commodores have some flaws.

Injuries have decimated their depth and Vanderbilt is relying on less than a handful of players to make a bulk of the plays.

Point guard Jasmine Lister, who doesn't have a true backup, is averaging a league-high 38.7 minutes a game. Vandy's leading scorer, Christina Foggie, is averaging 36.9 minutes.

Mitchell knows that UK's defense is capable of getting the best of a Vandy team it's beaten three straight times.

He just hopes that team shows up on Monday night the way it has to practice this weekend.

He hopes the crowd will show, too, despite the 9 p.m. start time.

"We need a big crowd for a very, very important game against Vanderbilt," he said. "I just want everybody to know what a big game it is, and I hope everybody will come out and watch us play."