OXFORD, Miss. -- Kentucky basketball enters tonight's game with six losses on the season. But only once have the Wildcats dropped back-to-back games. UK is 3-1 in its next outing after a loss.
"That's a credit to the players we have and the experience that we have, but also the coaching staff," fifth-year senior forward Andrew Carr said. "I feel like we've done a great job so far this year about trying to turn the page and understand it's never as good as it seems and it's never as bad as it seems.
"You go through so many different emotions throughout a season, and, for me, I think I've been a part of teams where you feel like the season's ending and it's like the middle of January or something like that."
Kentucky coach Mark Pope's group will need to be armed with that same focus tonight, as Ole Miss tries to bounce back from a loss of its own: It fell to Auburn last week.
"They're physical, athletic," junior guard Otega Oweh said. "They like to do (isolation)-ball a lot, so they're probably going to test us, trying to see how we (guard that). So, we just preach whenever a team does that, it has to be 1-on-5 instead of 1-on-1. ... We just have to take a stand when it comes to defense."
If not?
"We might go in there and get smacked by 30 (points)," senior guard Jaxson Robinson said. "We know they're a really good team."
Which team will come out on top, when the Wildcats (15-6, 4-4 SEC) tangle with the Rebels (16-6, 5-4) tonight?
Follow along below with live updates from The Pavilion in Oxford:
The contest between the Wildcats and Rebels will air on ESPN. Karl Ravech (play-by-play), Jimmy Dykes (analyst) and Molly McGrath (sideline) will have the call.
Tom Leach (play-by-play) and Jack Givens (analyst) will have the UK radio network call on 840 AM in Louisville and both 630 AM and 98.1 FM in Lexington.
Kentucky leads the all-time series with Ole Miss, 111-14. Entering tonight's tilt, the Wildcats have won three in a row over the Rebels and 14 of the past 15.
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