LEXINGTON, Ky. _ Competitive games that test a player's grace under pressure continued to be the theme for this Kentucky season on Saturday.
This year of living dangerously saw UK and Ole Miss trade the lead nine times inside the final five minutes.
Better free-throw shooting allowed Kentucky to prevail, 67-62. The Cats made 8 of 8 free throws inside the final 2:10. Ole Miss missed the front end of two one-and-ones inside the final minute.
Nick Richards put Kentucky ahead 63-62 by making two free throws with 1:11 left.
Ole Miss did not take the lead when the SEC's leading scorer, Breein Tyree, a 78.6% free-throw shooter, missed the front end of a one-and-one with 57.2 seconds left. Ashton Hagans picked up his fifth foul trying to prevent Tyree from getting the ball.
After calling a timeout with 39.4 seconds left, Kentucky missed a chance to pad the lead. The Cats appeared to want a corner 3 from Immanuel Quickley. But Ole Miss took that away with the result being a turnover by Tyrese Maxey.
Kentucky again dodged a deficit when Ole Miss could only get a forced 3-point air ball from Devontae Shuler.
Quickley, who came into the game with the second-best free-throw percentage in the country, made two free throws with 6.6 seconds left to put UK ahead 65-62.
Victory became all but assured when Tyree missed the front end of a one-and-one with 3.9 seconds left.
Kentucky improved to 20-5 overall and 10-2 in the Southeastern Conference. The latter kept UK no worse than tied for first place in the league.
Quickley led UK with 17 points. Richards and Maxey chipped in 16 and 14, respectively.
Ole Miss fell to 13-12 overall and 4-8 in the SEC. Tyree led the Rebels with a game-high 19 points.
One of the topics at Friday's interview session was UK's slow starts in some games.
"Our coach thinks that the other team, they come out really aggressive," Richards said.
Kentucky did not start slow. UK scored the game's first four points and led throughout the first 14 minutes.
But a late Ole Miss surge put Kentucky behind 27-25 at halftime.
When UK trailed at halftime at Vanderbilt on Tuesday, coach John Calipari's message for the second half was to get the ball to Richards.
The first half against Ole Miss suggested UK needed a reminder.
Kentucky took 13 3-point shots in the first half. That was more than UK had taken in any of the last three games or in nine games earlier this season. UK came into the game averaging 12.4 3-point shots in games against SEC teams this season.
Meanwhile, Richards took only two shots in Saturday's first 17 minutes.
When Ole Miss took a 22-18 lead, which matched its largest of the half, Kentucky called timeout. The ball then went to Richards, who promptly rebounded his own miss for a score.
Kentucky defended without fouling. Ole Miss made only 11 of 30 shots. UK did not get whistled for its first foul until 8:23 remained in the half.
Meanwhile, 29 seconds later, UK was eligible to shoot the one-and-one.
Tyree, who was mostly guarded by Hagans, did not score until hitting a pull-up jumper over Quickley with 11:29 left in the half. He had only two points until coming alive with eight points in less than three minutes late. That put UK behind at halftime.
On the first possession of the second half, Kentucky passed the ball to Richards. He missed the post-up shot, but the possession seemed to signal that UK would not forget Richards this half.
A dunk by Richards off a lob from Quickley tied it at 37-37.
A technical foul on Ole Miss Coach Kermit Davis helped UK take a 38-37 lead when Quickley made one of the two free throws.
Yet, Ole Miss did not go away. The Rebels twice led by as much as seven points inside the next three minutes.
Then it was UK's turn to rally. Quickley led the way. In one stretch, he scored 11 of UK's 17 points. His two free throws put UK ahead 55-54 with 4:55 left. That was UK's first lead in more than eight minutes and set up another possession-by-possession test of wills for Kentucky.
