Kentucky’s defense shows up in win over Ole Miss, ending three-game skid in Rupp Arena

The Rupp Arena skid is over. Kentucky finally won a basketball game at home.

UK defeated Ole Miss 75-63 on Tuesday night, putting an end to a historic run of futility on its home court and landing a much-needed victory against a quality opponent.

The Wildcats came into this one off the first three-game losing streak in the history of Rupp Arena, which opened in 1976. Before this, Kentucky hadn’t lost three in a row at home since the 1966-67 season, when the Cats played in Memorial Coliseum. The win over Ole Miss avoided what would have been Kentucky’s first four-game home losing skid since the 1926-27 season.

Sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso tied Hall of Famer David Robinson’s Rupp Arena record for blocked shots with 10, adding eight points and three rebounds to his stat line. His 10th block shot — to top the previous Rupp record by a UK player of nine, shared by Willie Cauley-Stein, Andre Riddick and Sam Bowie — came with 12:33 still remaining in the game, though he picked up his third foul shortly after that and headed to the UK bench to a standing ovation from the home crowd. (Nerlens Noel still holds the UK record with 12 blocks against Ole Miss in 2013.)

Antonio Reeves led the Wildcats in scoring with 15 points and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds. Reed Sheppard added 13 points, four rebounds, five assists and five steals. Justin Edwards had 12 points, scoring 11 of those in the first half. Rob Dillingham added 10 points and four assists.

UK’s 13-point halftime lead was whittled down to six by the first TV timeout of the second half, but the Cats quickly regrouped, ultimately leading by double figures for the final 13 minutes of the game.

Tre Mitchell returned from a back injury that kept him out of Kentucky’s last two games, making Tuesday night the first time this season that the Wildcats had been at full strength. That lasted less than 24 minutes, however, with Mitchell injuring his left shoulder before the first TV timeout of the second half and heading to the UK locker room. He did not return to the Wildcats bench area.

Kentucky got off to a slow start — falling behind 5-0 barely a minute into the game — but ended up with one of its best first halves of the season by the break. Edwards scored seven straight points after the Cats fell into that 5-0 hole, and a flurry of UK turnovers helped Ole Miss regain and keep the lead past the midway point of the half, but Kentucky took over from there.

Down 23-18 with less than seven minutes remaining until halftime, the Wildcats’ offense kicked into gear with a 10-0 run over a span of less than two minutes. In total, UK finished the half on a 25-6 run, with six different Wildcats scoring over that stretch and Mitchell finishing off the flurry with a dunk in the final seconds before the break.

More importantly for this UK team, the much-maligned defense came up big in the first half, surrendering just .784 points per possession over the first 20 minutes. Ole Miss came into the game with the No. 30 offense in the country, according to the KenPom efficiency ratings. The Rebels finished the game with .863 points per possession and made just 5 of 22 shots from 3-point range.

Onyenso had seven blocks in the first half, Sheppard added four steals before the break, and UK held the Rebels to 35.5% shooting before halftime.

The No. 22-ranked Wildcats (17-7, 7-4 SEC) will now travel to No. 13 Auburn for a major SEC matchup Saturday. The Tigers (19-5, 8-3 SEC) will host No. 11 South Carolina, the SEC co-leaders, on Wednesday night before welcoming the Wildcats to town this weekend.

Ole Miss (18-6, 5-6 SEC) came into Tuesday’s game projected to be an NCAA Tournament team in its first season under new head coach Chris Beard.

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