No. 14 Kentucky holds off rally by Mississippi State, 80-74

Mississippi State, however, will be desperate to get its first major win under new head coach Ben Howland. “Then one of the others bought his ticket with another $2”. Our bigs are doing a much better job of screening so that he can.

“Alex made the free throws down the stretch and showed a lot of courage”, Calipari said. They said they didn’t know. “‘That ticket is not a victor”. “Your ticket ain’t winning”. “It may be 50-50 that you’re going to hit the lottery, 70-30, but you’ve got to fight”. But you get the sense that could change shortly. Already a veteran of global competition but still climbing the steep learning curve that is Kentucky Basketball. Kentucky went on their own 4-0 run to lead 27-19 before Mississippi State came back. United Kingdom then reverted back and had its lead trimmed to just three with 35 seconds remaining before ultimately holding on to win 80-74.

Freshman Jamal Murray’s 21 points helped Kentucky hold on. It marked his third consecutive game with at least 20 points.

“We just wanted to have a great start”, Newman said. That is something we’ve been working on the past couple of weeks. The test they will face at home all depends on how they handle one player. Isaiah Briscoe, Jamal Murray and Tyler Ulis are extremely important to the overall success of the Wildcats, but Poythress’ play takes Kentucky from an Elite Eight team to a genuine national title favorite.

After falling just one point short against the Texas A&M Aggies, the Bulldogs have lost four games this season by two possessions or less. Murray has hit a 3-pointer in his first 16 collegiate games, a school record.

Mississippi State (7-8, 0-3) rallied from a 20-point deficit in the second half and trailed 74-71 with 1:14 remaining, but the Wildcats made six free throws in the final 47 seconds to seal the victory. “They are very, very good guards and about as good of a backcourt as you will find in the country, like I said going into the game”.

Kentucky led 39-31 in a game that had blowout smeared all over it early.

Briscoe wasn’t surprised by the Mississippi State’s late surge that made things interesting down the stretch.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Wade Baldwin IV scored 17 points and tied his career-high with 10 assists as the Vanderbilt Commodores snapped a three-game skid to start Southeastern Conference play by beating Auburn.

Howland said he was most impressed with Sword’s eight rebounds, but said his six turnovers were too many.

Ware made the first bucket of the second half.

A Hall of Fame coach once said a team without a post presence was “a fraud”.

No UK player revealed which Wildcat surrendered his chance at the jackpot or which player doubled down on his chance at winning by purchasing the forfeited ticket, but Calipari’s message had to do with more than simple probability. Centers Marcus Lee and Skal Labissiere and forward Alex Poythress combined to score just 13 points.

He said the team needs junior guard Dominique Hawkins, who is out with an ankle sprain. “It brings our entire team down”. “That is hard for us to get a good win that way and why they came back”.

“We are heading into playing at Kentucky which is one of the hardest places to play in the country, its right there with Kansas and Arkansas. Just trying to go prove that and have myself do it”. “Get it off. If you can’t get that shot off, you can’t play basketball, you’re really not a basketball player”.