Jodie Meeks' Off Night Not the Reason for Kentucky's Loss to Ole Miss

After the Wildcats' unfortunate loss to Ole Miss on Tuesday night, many questions were raised. Why did they lose? Was it because Jodie Meeks had an off night? Well, many of you think that must be the reason, seeing that he normally shoots over 50 percent from the field.

Well, the fact of the matter is, Meeks' rare poor shooting performance was definitely shadowed by many other factors that led to the upset of the Rebels over the Wildcats. Many people have been saying that if Meeks struggles they lose, but this loss could have easily been avoided even if Jodie Meeks did have an off night.

The Cats still managed to score 80 points, just over their season average, and managed to just commit 10 turnovers, which is a rarity, but the primary problem was on the defensive end.

The Kentucky Wildcats came into this game with one of the top five defenses in the nation relating to the opposition's field goal percentage. Ole Miss made 43 percent of their shots and scored a rare 85 points on the Cats, which is the most points they've allowed since the first game of the season.

The Kentucky Wildcats failed to box out and get rebounds. Ole Miss outrebounded the Cats by a large margin. On the defensive end they were too lazy fighting for the ball. They didn't fight around picks, and they didn't run to the man who always had the open jumper. The Cats are a fast team and are conditioned well, but they didn't show much enthusiasm on either end of the court.

As far as Meeks goes, when your top scorer is shooting poorly, other people must step up. This game could have been won if the Kentucky players played to their strengths.

Darius Miller is a 19 percent three-point shooter, but was taking three-pointers. Perry Stevenson makes jumpers near the foul line and gets back door cuts for open dunks, but for some reason last night he tried too many times to post up down low. Stevenson is too weak of a player to be a post-up player; please leave that to Patrick Patterson.

But to say if Meeks plays poorly, the Cats lose is ridiculous. The Cats lose when the Cats play poorly, not just when Jodie Meeks does. When any team loses, 90 percent of the time everyone plays poorly. Patterson had 24 points, but on defense he obviously struggled to stop people on the defensive end.

Meeks has played poorly in the past and Kentucky has still won. He went 3-11 from the field and the Cats still beat West Virginia. Meeks went 5-12 against Indiana and only had 13 points, but the game was over before the first TV timeout.

In the game vs. West Virginia, the Cats shot 38 percent like they did against Ole Miss. Meeks struggled against West Virginia like he did against Ole Miss, but Kentucky won because they held West Virginia to 30 percent shooting and outrebounded them.

When Kentucky plays good defense, they win. When they rebound, they win.

This is a team effort, not Meeks' effort.