For all his number crunching, one Ken Pomeroy statistical category continued to loom large on this Kentucky season Tuesday. It was and is and might continue to be his calculation of luck.
Earlier this season, Pomeroy ranked Kentucky last in luck. Going into the game at Ole Miss, he had Kentucky at No. 346 in that category.
Pomeory said he based his luck calculation on how teams fare in close games. Kentucky might have broken his slide rule with yet another possession-by-possession test of nerves and fate.
Ole Miss became the latest opponent to outplay Kentucky down the stretch. The Rebels won, 70-62, as Kentucky continued to make the wrong kind of history.
Kentucky lost a 15th game in a season for only the second time in the proud program’s history. The Cats in Eddie Sutton’s final season of 1988-89 finished with a 13-19 record.
UK, 8-15 overall and 7-9 in the Southeastern Conference, got pounded on the boards 42-28. That helped limit UK to only two fast-break points.
Kentucky came up woefully short of daggers. Davion Mintz and Olivier Sarr missed potential game-changing 3s inside the final 90 seconds.
Missing three free throws in the final 91 seconds did not help and capped a 15-for-25 game at the foul line.
Ole Miss forward Sammy Hunter personified the luck factor. He came into the game having made two of 12 3-point shots. He made a career-high three shots from beyond the arc and scored a career-high 11 points.
Ole Miss improved to 14-10 overall and 9-8 in the SEC. The Rebels stayed alive for a double-bye in next week’s SEC Tournament, while Kentucky was mathematically eliminated from that possibility.
Keion Brooks led UK with 16 points and eight rebounds.
On Monday, Ole Miss coach Kermit Davis spoke of both teams as “desperate” in making postseason play at least more plausible.
“I hope our guys will come out with great, great juice,” he said.
The Rebels had more juice than Kentucky in the first half. UK never led in the opening 20 minutes. Although trailing by as much as 10 points, UK closed within 32-29 at halftime.
Poor shooting put Kentucky in a comeback mode. The Cats made only five of their first 22 shots. With only 12 points in the first 13-plus minutes, Kentucky was on pace for fewer than 40 points in the game.
Rebounding hurt Kentucky. Ole Miss outrebounded the Cats 20-14 in the half. The contributed to no fast-break points, so Kentucky had to play half-court offense.
So did Ole Miss, which also had no fast-break points in the first half.
Thanks to KJ Buffen outplaying Olivier Sarr, Ole Miss had the more productive half-court offense. Buffen had 11 points and seven rebounds in the first half.
Sarr scored five points and did not grab a rebound in 13 minutes.
Poor free-throw shooting also hurt UK. The Cats made seven of 12 free throws before the break. That nearly matched the number of misses from the foul line in the three most recent games (66 of 74).
Ole Miss came into Tuesday with an 11-2 record in games in which it led at halftime. The Rebels had been 2-8 when trailing at the break.
The basketball gods smiled on Kentucky’s first half. Mintz made a heavily-contested 3-point throw to beat the shot clock and put UK ahead 35-34 with 18:40 left.
Kentucky pulling away seemed less likely when Jackson picked up his second foul with 16:08 left and his third 73 seconds later.
Foul trouble almost immediately hit Ole Miss. Buffen picked up his third (illegal screen) and fourth fouls (hack of a driving Sarr) in one full-court exchange of possessions. He went to the bench with 13:18 left.
With the foul trouble evening out, a 15th game in which the difference in score was single digits inside the final four minutes seemed assured.
