Kentucky 77 - 62 Mississippi (No. 2,078)

Sometimes a basketball game turns on a single play. Yesterday was one of those games, and Darius Miller -- one of our very favorite UK players -- made the play.

Here was the situation. Ole Miss is coached by Andy Kennedy, who is a disciple of Bob Huggins, and no one has given Coach Cal more trouble than Huggins. Huggins's teams are designed to prevent exactly the type of close-to-the-basket scoring on which Calipari's teams usually depend. They feature big, bruising front court players who bang you around, and they will basically tackle you before they will give up a transition basket. The best way to beat a Huggins/Kennedy team is to make three's and draw fouls -- that's how Vandy put up 102 points on Ole Miss last Thursday (the Dores went 12-19 from three-point range and 30-38 from the line in Oxford). But UK doesn't normally play that style -- the Cats prefer to score inside, which is what Ole Miss is good at stopping. (In fact, UK went only 18-40 from two-point range yesterday.)

Ole Miss's bruising style also had the advantage of causing foul trouble for UK, and in fact, the Rebels were the first team in a long while to draw two quick fouls on Anthony Davis. The UK center had to leave the floor with about 10 minutes to go in the first half, and Ole Miss promptly went on a 16-5 run. With the Rebels leading 31-29, 4:45 left in the first half, and both Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist on the bench with two fouls, Calipari called time.

What happened next will be one of my favorite memories of this season. Kentucky came out of the time out, and Miller ended up with the ball in the middle of Ole Miss's 2-3 zone. Between Miller and the goal stood Reginald Buckner, an Ole Miss forward who is 6' 9" and 225 pounds. Normally in this situation Miller will take a little jump shot, or maybe kick the ball out -- but this time he simply leaped at the goal, took the contact from Buckner (no foul was called) and STUFFED the ball into the goal. Miller turned and ran back down the floor, and appeared to be saying something to Calipari along the lines of, "Is that what you wanted?"

So that was a pretty effective time out.

Miller's dunk marked the beginning of a 14-4 run that left UK with an 8-point lead at the half, and here is how UK scored its fourteen points: (1) Miller's dunk, (2) a three-pointer by Kyle Wiltjer, (3) a three-pointer by Miller, (4) another three-pointer by Miller, and (5) a three-pointer by Lamb. In other words, Ole Miss forced Kentucky to play in a completely different style -- and UK still managed to end up controlling the game. Miller and Wiltjer each had 10 points in the first half, and it was great to see them playing so well.

In the second half, Davis and MKG returned to the action, and Kentucky quickly expanded its lead. The Cats were up 75-52 with 5:37 left, and then eased up down the stretch. The big story of the game -- other than Miller and Wiltjer -- was that Terrence Jones had 15 points and 11 rebounds, for his first double-double of the year. Lamb chipped in his usual 16 points, while Davis had 10 points and 6 rebounds in only 25 minutes. MKG had only 4 points and 7 rebounds, but I think it's very hard for both him and Jones to have big numbers in the same game.

Shooting note: The Cats went 10-18 (55.6 percent) from three-point range, and 11-17 (64.7 percent) from the line. UK has now made 40.6 percent of its three-pointers in SEC play, which is very, very good.

The Cats are now 26-1 overall and 12-0 in the SEC. And they will be number 1 for another week. But next up is a trip to Starkville, and they will need to shoot well in that game.