Kentucky prepares for iso-heavy offense, unorthodox defense in 'big test' at Ole Miss

Kentucky will look to move past a tough home loss to Arkansas with a ranked road matchup at Ole Miss, traveling to Oxford to take on the No. 25 Rebels, who sit at 16-6 on the year and 5-4 in the SEC.

Sitting at No. 23 in the NET, Chris Beard’s group gets after it defensively, ranked No. 12 nationally in efficiency with the No. 3 turnover rate in college basketball. They’re not slouches on the other end, either, coming in ranked No. 36 in offensive efficiency, led by senior guard Sean Pedulla with 15.2 points per game on 46/42/86 splits.

What are the Wildcats expecting in their eighth ranked opponent of the year? Another difficult test — like all SEC matchups this season.

“Ole Miss, they’re another good team. They’re physical and athletic,” Otega Oweh said Monday. “They like to do iso ball a lot, so they’re going to test us. We just preach that whenever a team does that, it has to be one on five instead of one on one. We’ve watched a lot of film on them and saw what they do, so we just have to take a stand defensively.”

The Rebels are guard-heavy with four of their five leading scorers being backcourt threats, but Jaemyn Brakefield (6-8, 225) and Malik Dia (6-9, 250) are capable of going off, too, averaging 10.8 and 9.6 points apiece, respectively.

“It’s another tough team. They’re fast, they’ve got a lot of good guards,” Oweh continued. “Their bigs are capable of scoring 20. Our defense is going to be tested and we have to come back and respond. We know anybody in the SEC can beat us, it’s a top-25 team, so we have to be locked in.”

They’re a bit funky defensively, Andrew Carr has noticed, something that could throw off Kentucky’s high-octane offense. That’s a challenge he’s personally excited for, though.

“They’re a super, super talented team. Their defense is a little unorthodox to switch everything, they’re super aggressive to the basketball, a little unpredictable sending two to the ball sometimes. We’re ready to go against something new,” he said. “We haven’t really faced a full five interchange switching team team so far, so we’re excited to be able to attack that in a lot of different ways that we have talked about.”

Like Oweh, Carr also noticed how the Rebels like to take you one on one with an iso-oriented offense. They’ve been successful with it, too, something they’re keeping a close eye on.

“Offensively, they’re probably one of the better iso type of teams that we’ve played against, and they have super talented players,” he continued. “It’s going to be a big test for us on some of the things that we’ve talked about coming out of our last game.

“We’re excited to be able to put that to the test tomorrow and go out, get another road win.”

Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET in Oxford, live on ESPN. Can the Wildcats get back in the win column and win a second consecutive true road matchup?