Three takeaways from No. 6 Kentucky’s 95-90 road win against No. 14 Mississippi State
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Game day: No. 6 Kentucky 95, No. 14 Mississippi State 90
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Mississippi State in Starkville, Miss.
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Three takeaways from the sixth-ranked Kentucky basketball team’s 95-90 win against the No. 14 Mississippi State Bulldogs at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville.
1. Huge road win for Kentucky
Just four days ago, after Kentucky’s 82-69 loss at Georgia, we were talking about what a tough task it was going to be for any SEC basketball team to win on the road this season. If not impossible.
Saturday night, Mark Pope’s Cats were up to the challenge. Never mind that Mississippi State was 14-1 overall, 2-0 in the SEC and had won eight straight games. Never mind that Chris Jans’ Bulldogs were ranked 14th in the latest AP Top 25, had beaten South Carolina by 35 in Starkville and Vanderbilt by 12 in Nashville.
Never mind that the Cats built a 14-point lead, 68-54 with 15:13 left in the second half, only to fall behind 80-78 with 8:16 remaining. Never mind that when Mississippi State fought back to go in front you figured the Bulldogs would continue on to the win.
Didn’t happen. Ansley Almonor played a huge role in keeping it from happening. The transfer from Fairleigh Dickinson jumped up off the bench to hit not one, not two, but three 3-pointers in a span of two minutes to give Kentucky an 89-82 lead. Lamont Butler’s basket in the lane made it 91-84. Jaxson Robinson’s clutch basket from the right wing made it 93-90. Then Butler capped it with a floater at the 15-second mark for the final margin to seal Pope’s first SEC road win.
2. When clicking offensively, UK is hard to beat
At his Thursday press conference, Pope said that coaches love trends. Here’s one that has been easy to spot. In UK’s 106-100 win over Florida in the league opener last Saturday, the Cats made 14 of 29 attempts from 3-point land for 48.3%. In the 13-point loss at Georgia, the Cats were just 6-for-25 shooting from 3 for 24%. In the win at The Hump, the Cats made 16 of its 32 attempts from beyond the arc for 50%.
After the loss at Georgia, we wrote about how Robinson was struggling offensively. The transfer from BYU missed four of his five 3-point attempts and scored just five points in Athens. In fact, over his last four games, Robinson was a mere 6-for-22 shooting from behind the arc.
That changed in a hurry on Saturday. Robinson scored 27 points — his highest total as a Cat — including 16 in the first half. He made seven of his 10 shots from 3-point territory. And he buried that key jumper with 1:03 remaining.
He wasn’t alone. We’ve already mentioned Almonor’s key hot streak. Amari Willliams scored 10 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and dished six assists. Andrew Carr scored 13 points despite wearing a back brace. Butler ended up with 10 points, including a clutch 3-pointer that beat the halftime buzzer.
After averaging a mere 0.920 points per possession at Georgia, UK averaged 1.283 vs. Mississippi State. And the Bulldogs entered the game ranked 17th in adjusted defensive efficiency by KenPom.
Key stat: After totaling just eight assists at Georgia, Kentucky ended up with 21 on Saturday. That stat illustrated how well the Cats played offensively. And when they play well offensively, they’re hard to beat.
3. Here comes a big week
The AP rankings will undoubtedly change, but as it stands right now the Cats have two AP top-10 matchups next week. No. 10 Texas A&M comes to town on Tuesday night. Then No. 5 Alabama visits Rupp Arena next Saturday. Those two met Saturday night in College Station with Bama coming away with a 94-88 victory.
As we’ve talked about how tough it will be on the road this SEC season, we’ve also written about teams need to hold serve at home. That won’t be easy to do. Texas A&M is 13-3 overall and 2-1 in the SEC. The preseason conference favorite, Alabama is now 14-2 overall and 3-0 in league play.
Still, Kentucky showed against Florida at home and Mississippi State on the road that if the Cats are clicking they can beat any team. They were more physical against Mississippi State, winning the offensive rebounding percentage battle 29.0-25.6. They were also to come up with some key loose balls.
Mainly, they made their shots. UK shot 55.7% for the game, the eighth time this season it has shot better than 50%. Not surprisingly, Kentucky is 8-0 in those games. Given the competition, it’ll need similar shooting efforts next week.
This story was originally published January 11, 2025 at 11:47 PM.
