Ole Miss vs. Kentucky: Score and Twitter Reaction from 2015 Regular Season

Kentucky is so good it can afford to be bad. Or it can at least afford to absorb another team's best shot on a night when it isn't dominant. 

And Kentucky was far less than dominant against Ole Miss Tuesday in Lexington. It didn't matter in the end, however, as the Wildcats found a way to survive and go to 14-0 on the season, holding off the Rebels (9-5) in overtime, 89-86, despite trailing at the half.

Aaron Harrison (26 points, four rebounds) and Willie Cauley-Stein (seven points, 12 rebounds, four blocks) came up huge for Kentucky, while Stefan Moody (25 points) and Jarvis Summers (23 points, four assists) paced the Rebels.

This one was all Kentucky to start, as the team raced out to a 12-0 lead and started the game on an 18-5 run. Karl-Anthony Towns and Aaron Harrison couldn't miss early on, as the former chipped in seven points and the latter scored nine in Kentucky's bright start.

James Crisp/Associated Press

Ole Miss recovered, however, going on a 17-5 run of its own and eventually taking a 27-26 lead at the 7:43 mark. The Rebels wouldn't trail for the rest of the half, and after they went up 36-30 at the 3:26 mark, their run had become truly impressive, as Max Bretos of ESPN noted:

The Wildcats steamrolled UCLA, 83-44, on December 20.

Indeed, Kentucky came into the game giving up just 47.8 points per game, best in the nation, but the Wildcats weren't themselves defensively in the first half, and Ole Miss went into the locker room leading 38-36. It didn't help that the Wildcats shot just 34.4 percent from the field in the first half.

Moody led the way for the Rebels, scoring 16 points in the half, while Aaron Harrison paced Kentucky with 15 points.

Dick Weiss of Blue Star Media broke down what the Rebels were doing to give the Wildcats so many problems:

Where the first half was all about the teams trading big runs, the second was a close affair that never saw the two separated by more than six points and included four lead changes and nine ties through the course of the final 20 minutes.

It also featured a bizarre moment when replays clearly showed an Ole Miss three-pointer to be a two-pointer, but as Dan Wolken of USA Today tweeted, it took the referees forever to acknowledge that fact:

Kentucky looked to be in control with 3:34 remaining, as it took a 75-70 lead on an Aaron Harrison free throw. After the teams had gone back and forth throughout the half, it appeared as though the mighty Wildcats were going to pull this one out.

It didn't help that Moody battled cramps down the stretch and had to spend stretches on the bench, hydrating and stretching in order to keep battling.

James Crisp/Associated Press

But Ole Miss had no quit. The Rebels went on a 7-1 run and got the ball back with 42 seconds remaining after Kentucky missed its attempt. It appeared Ole Miss was in charge. But it promptly turned the ball over, and Andrew Harrison made one of two free throws on Kentucky's next possession to tie the game.

That set up Ole Miss with the final possession, but again the Rebels couldn't put away the Wildcats as Summers' three-pointer with time expiring hit the back of the rim and was grabbed by Kentucky.

Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated wasn't a fan of that possession:

The back-and-forth continued in overtime, with the teams continuing to exchange the lead. But Kentucky would survive the extra period behind Cauley-Stein, who finished with two points, five gigantic rebounds and a block in the final five minutes. The Rebels had two chances in the last minute to tie the game, trailing by three, but they couldn't sink the shot from beyond the arc to force the tie.

And so the Wildcats remained undefeated, and Ole Miss was left heartbroken. Dana O'Neil of ESPN saw both the disappointment from Ole Miss' perspective and the hope it provided with its effort:

And Andy Katz of ESPN was just surprised it was Ole Miss that gave Kentucky one of its first reality checks of the season:

Indeed, this seems like the type of game that Kentucky coach John Calipari will likely use as a motivational tool for the Wildcats—the type of game that he will hope humbles his talented but young group of stars as it heads into the teeth of its SEC schedule. 

Aaron Harrison gave Ole Miss a ton of credit after the game per The Associated Press (via ESPN.com):

"

We knew they were going to fight. The SEC is tougher than what people think and we knew they weren't going to lay down. They came out and fought really hard. We had a game where we had to make big plays and we made them.

"

And it speaks to Kentucky's resilience that it found a way to win in a game that Ole Miss gave it everything it could handle and then some. The Wildcats can blow teams out, but they proved they can win the close ones going forward too.

And Ole Miss proved it could hang with the big boys. Even if the big boys were good enough to survive the stretches in this game when they were pretty bad.