UK rallies again, but will playing down to the competition catch up with the Cats?
Instant analysis from No. 12 Kentucky’s 67-62 win over Mississippi:
How the game was won
Immanuel Quickley scored 14 of his 17 points in the second half and Nick Richards had 12 of his 16 after halftime to rally cold-shooting UK to a come-from-behind win.
Who’s hot
1. Immanuel Quickley. Actually, the Kentucky guard was not hot, at least as a jump shooter. But it is a tribute to Quickley’s development as a player that even on a day when he was 1-for-8 on three-point tries, he still found a way to lead UK in scoring.
2. Nick Richards. The UK center fought through an ultra-physical Ole Miss defensive effort to produce a strong game. The 6-foot-11 junior’s late-game foul shooting (he went 4-for-4 in the final 2:10) continues to be stellar for a big man.
3. EJ Montgomery. The Kentucky power forward went to the floor to wrest away the rebound after a missed Tyrese Maxey trey with 1:35 left in the game. Montgomery got the ball back to Maxey who scored a driving layup that pushed UK ahead.
The Cats don’t win that game without Montgomery’s “effort play.”
Who’s not
1. Kentucky three-point shooting. Was a brutal two of 22.
2. Ashton Hagans. Kentucky point guard fouled out after going 3-for-11 from the floor with four turnovers.
3. Breein Tyree’s foul shooting. In a one-point game inside the final minute, the Ole Miss star — a 78.6-percent foul shooter on the season — missed the front end of the bonus twice.
Key number(s)
Fifty-seven and two. Kentucky and Mississippi have now played 57 basketball games all-time in Lexington. The Rebels have still won only two of them. The two Ole Miss victories in Lexington came on Feb. 14, 1998 (73-64), and on Feb. 11, 1927 (37-17).
The ‘Cat-mosphere’
1. Rising country singer Hannah Ellis, a Campbellsville native and UK alumnus, performed the national anthem.
2. The Firecrackers, a performance jump-rope team made up of fourth- through eighth-graders from the Kings Local School District in Ohio, provided a high-energy halftime show.
3. Jack Givens, star of Kentucky’s 1978 NCAA championship team, was “the Y.”
Up next
No. 12 Kentucky (20-5, 10-2 SEC) will travel to Baton Rouge to face No. 25 LSU (18-7, 9-3 SEC) in a crucial Southeastern Conference matchup. The game will tip off at 9 p.m. (EST) Tuesday and be telecast by ESPN.
The Tigers defeated the Wildcats 73-71 last season in Rupp Arena on Kevell Bigby-Williams’ controversial tip-in at the buzzer, a win that ultimately allowed LSU to win the SEC regular-season title by one game over UK (and Tennessee).
Mississippi (13-12, 4-8 SEC) will travel to Missouri on Tuesday night for an 8:30 p.m. tipoff on the SEC Network.
This story was originally published February 15, 2020 at 4:37 PM.
