Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s victory at Ole Miss

Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 75-66 win over the Ole Miss Rebels on Tuesday night in Oxford.

1. Kentucky took care of business

Let’s not get carried away here. Ole Miss entered Tuesday night 9-12 overall and 1-7 in the SEC. The Rebels’ only conference win was over lowly South Carolina. Plus, the Rebels were without their leading scorer Matthew Murrell (14.9 points per game) and point guard Daeshun Ruffin, who scored 18 points at Missouri.

Ole Miss was 99th in the Ken Pomeroy rankings. Kentucky was 34th. UK was supposed to win. And it did.

Still, it did so without Cason Wallace, the fab freshman who was held out because of a knee bruise. Wallace’s replacement, former starting point guard Sahvir Wheeler, appeared to turn his ankle with 3:35 left in the first half. Thankfully, Wheeler returned for the second half and played well. He finished with nine assists and one turnover in 33 minutes. After a meh of a first half, Kentucky pulled away in the second to go 6-3 in the conference.

For Kentucky, an upset loss at the Pavilion would have been a disaster. After last Saturday’s home loss to Kansas, the Cats are 1-6 in NCAA NET Quad 1 games. They could not afford a stubbed toe on the road. Not as a 7.5-point favorite. In the end, Kentucky did what it had to do.

2. Antonio Reeves remains on a roll

Make it eight straight double-figure scoring games for Reeves. The transfer from Illinois State scored a game-high 27 points. That’s his UK high as well. Again coming off the bench, the super sixth-man was 8 of 12 from the floor, including a deadly 6 of 7 from three-point range. He swished all five of his free throws.

Reeves has now scored 138 points over his last eight games. That’s an average of 17.3 points. He missed all three of his three-point attempts in the loss to Kansas. Despite that, he’s 13-of-26 from downtown over his last four games. That’s 50 percent. Impressive.

His production was even more valuable considering CJ Fredrick’s continued struggles. Right now, Fredrick is a shooter who can’t seem to get a shot to go down. He missed both his shots Tuesday night, including one three-point try. This after going 1-for-8 overall and 0-for-5 from three-point range against the Jayhawks in Rupp. Over his last five games, Fredrick is a surprising 5 of 26 from three-point range.

Meanwhile, Reeves scored 18 of his 27 points in the second half. His back-to-back buckets — the second being a three — gave UK a 43-37 lead with 15:03 left. His old-fashioned three-point play extended the Cats’ lead to 48-41 at the 13:24 mark. He scored five straight points as Kentucky began to separate, up 63-51 with 6:06 left. He was the game’s MVP.

3. UK still has problems with the pick and roll

John Calipari knows his team’s biggest problem defensively. His assistants know the team’s biggest problem defensively. The players know the team’s biggest problem defensively. And yet the Cats have not found a way to get their pick-and-roll problem fixed.

SEC Network analyst Dane Bradshaw — the one who sounds like Cris Collinsworth — talked about it continually on the Tuesday broadcast. He pointed to possessions where Oscar Tshiebwe lost his man. Or a Tshiebwe teammate would become confused about his assignment. Or there was not enough communication among UK’s defenders to properly play the play. Bradshaw knows his stuff.

Luckily for the Cats, Ole Miss did not have the offensive firepower to take advantage of UK’s defensive flaw the same way an Alabama or a Kansas did. Still, with nine games remaining in the regular season, Calipari has to find a way to, if not fix, at least mediate the problem. A problem that persists.

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