Life in the Southeastern Conference is brutal; coming off two losses, Kentucky and Ole Miss met on the hardwood Tuesday night for a top-25 showdown between two desperate teams needing a win.

With the crowd behind them, the Rebels opened a nice lead on the Wildcats in the first half, with Club Red carrying the momentum to the locker room with a 54-31 lead.

Kentucky had no answer for the Rebels in the first half, and that trend continued in the second half. At the under-16 media timeout of the second half, Ole Miss pushed the lead to 68-43 over Kentucky. At the under-12 media timeout, the Ole Miss lead over Kentucky had dwindled to 72-54. A run from Kentucky would cut the Ole Miss lead to 78-65 with 7:43 to play. The final media timeout saw the Rebels hold on to an 87-73 over the visiting Kentucky Wildcats.

Needing a signature win, Coach Beard came out with his Rebels on Tuesday, looking to make a statement with a dominating win over Coach Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats. For the first time in a long time, Ole Miss dominated Kentucky from the opening tip to the final buzzer, and it was all Ole Miss. Coach Beard preached on Saturday after the loss to Auburn about his team playing more aggressively and to the championship standard he holds them to. Tuesday night will likely go down as one of the biggest wins in the Chris Beard era in Oxford. His Ole Miss Rebels went right at Kentucky, and despite some late effort, the Rebels never backed down.

With the win over Kentucky, Ole Miss improves to 17-6 overall and 6-4 in Southeastern Conference play.

Ole Miss will now hit the road for a two-game road trip. The first will be LSU on Saturday before traveling to Columbia, South Carolina, to take on the Gamecocks of South Carolina on Wednesday night. Ole Miss will return home on Valentine’s weekend for a Saturday night showdown with Mississippi State.

Photo Credits – Ole Miss Basketball on X