FINAL: Hot-shooting Ole Miss overwhelms Kentucky in Oxford with 98-84 beatdown

Kentucky let one loss turn into two. And unless something changes soon, it could turn into several more.

On Tuesday night in Oxford, the No. 25 Ole Miss Rebels (17-6; 5-5 SEC) embarrassed a shorthanded No. 14 Wildcats (15-7; 4-5 SEC) squad by a final score of 98-84. Kentucky was once again without Lamont Butler for the third straight game due to injury, but his absence was hardly the only reason for this beatdown.

Ole Miss scored over 90 points against UK for the first time since 1971 by shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 13-30 from deep. The Rebels finished with 24 assists and just one turnover for the entire night. Five different Ole Miss players scored at least 10 points, led by 24 from Matthew Murrell on 6-11 outside shooting.

Kentucky didn’t even play poorly on offense with shooting splits of 50/47.6/72.7. Otega Oweh dropped 24 points and six rebounds, Amari Williams recorded a triple-double (just the fourth in school history), and Jaxson Robinson nailed five three-pointers. But an absolutely putrid first-half performance on both ends of the floor dug far too deep a hole for the Wildcats to climb out of.

The opening minute of this game was a sign of the terrible things to come. A quick 5-0 start for Ole Miss off a pair of free throws and a three-pointer set the tone from the jump. Kentucky soon began to collapse upon itself. It was a 10-point Rebels lead just five minutes into the night. It didn’t matter if they were wide open or tightly contested looks, Ole Miss was hitting anything and everything.

But Kentucky certainly didn’t make it tough. Whether it was a lack of effort, a hangover from the Arkansas loss, the absence of anyone who could dribble the basketball up the floor, or all of the above, there was hardly anything the ‘Cats could do right. UK actually went 5-10 from deep in the first half but turned the ball over six times while shooting under 39 percent from the floor.

Ole Miss recorded 15 assists on 20 made shots in the first half without a single turnover. It was enough to build a massive 54-31 lead at the intermission. Kentucky’s 23-point halftime deficit was the program’s third-largest ever against an SEC opponent.

It would only get worse in the opening segment of the second half as Ole Miss increased its lead to 27. But slowly but surely, Kentucky did manage to mount a semblance of a comeback. It started by trimming the Rebels’ lead to under 20 with 12 minutes to go. It was bumped down to just 11 points with under eight minutes left as the Wildcats were shooting over 70 percent from the field in the half to that point.

Hope was quickly ripped away, though. On the very next possession, Ole Miss hit a contested three-pointer right before the shot clock expired to make it a 14-point game once again. That was as close as Kentucky would get the rest of the way. It didn’t matter how good the offense played, the Rebels always had an answer on the other end.

Kentucky has now lost four of its last five games. Up next is a return to Rupp Arena as South Carolina comes to town on Saturday (12:00 p.m. EST, ESPN2). We’re entering must-win territory for the ‘Cats.