FINAL: No. 19 Kentucky ends regular season strong with 91-83 road win over No. 15 Missouri

Kentucky couldn’t have closed the 2024-25 regular season any better than what went down Saturday in Columbia.

The No. 19 Wildcats (21-10; 10-8 SEC) came into Mizzou Arena and pulled out a 91-83 road win over the No. 15 Missouri Tigers (21-10; 10-8 SEC). It took an all-around performance from Kentucky to steal this one, with four ‘Cats scoring in double-digits, led by 22 from Otega Oweh. Koby Brea added 17 points while Andrew Carr played arguably his best game of the season with 16 points and 12 rebounds. Amari Williams rounded out the double-figure scoring with 14 points and eight rebounds.

There’s a case to be made this was Kentucky’s best defensive outing of the season. Missouri played much better offensively in the second half, but UK’s first half performance on that end was on another level. The Wildcats finished the afternoon shooting 48.2 percent from the field and 11-20 from deep. Collin Chandler also impressed with eight points on 3-5 shooting in his 16 minutes.

It was an ice-cold offensive start for both teams in the opening minutes. Defense was the name of the game as nothing came easy on either end. Missouri held an 8-3 lead five minutes into the contest, which grew to 11-4 eight minutes in, before Kentucky’s offense settled in. A 14-2 stretch from the ‘Cats was the first major run of the afternoon, silencing the jam-packed arena.

Oweh and Lamont Butler would pick up a couple of early first half fouls, limiting their playing time, but Kentucky found ways to score elsewhere. A 3-3 mark from deep from Brea, along with three-pointers from both Trent Noah and Travis Perry, helped pick up the backcourt slack. Williams and Carr were going to work too with a combined 16 points and eight rebounds through 20 minutes. UK’s defense held Missouri to 35.5 percent shooting overall on a 3-13 clip from deep in the opening half.

Kentucky took a 38-29 lead into the break and quickly built on it out of the intermission. UK went up by as many as 16 points as Chandler did the bulk of the scoring. It was an incredibly fast pace to begin the second half, which was slowed by an uptick in fouls called by the officials. But Kentucky, still playing great defense to this point, continued to keep Missouri from mounting a comeback. It was a 62-48 lead for the ‘Cats at the under 12-minute media timeout.

Missouri still had a run left in them though. A 6-0 stretch by the Tigers cut Kentucky’s lead to single-digits for the first time since early in the second half. UK was clinging to a 66-57 lead with less than eight minutes to go. The Tigers extended that to a 10-0 run, making it just a five-point game as UK was forced to call a timeout.

But Kentucky dug deep and found ways to respond. The ‘Cats answered with a 6-0 run of its own to create an 11-point advantage with roughly two minutes to go. A dunk by Brea with under 90 seconds to go made it a 10-point lead as Kentucky ran out the clock from there to pick up a massive victory to close out the regular season.

Next up is a trip to Nashville for the SEC Tournament where Kentucky has locked up a single-bye. With Saturday’s win, UK will also avoid the 8-seed and could finish as high as the 5-seed depending on the rest of the day’s results.